


Take Two

by Raina_at



Series: Take Two [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Actor Sherlock Holmes, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Bottom John, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Stagemanager!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:35:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25046998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raina_at/pseuds/Raina_at
Summary: Six years ago, Sherlock Holmes, then a promising young actor, broke John Watson's heart.When the production John is working on needs a new lead actor two weeks before press night, they turn to Sherlock to save the production.Working together after six years won't be a problem. After all, both of them are professionals. And both of them have moved on. Or at least they think they have.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Take Two [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064999
Comments: 50
Kudos: 260





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was so much fun to write, and is an absoultely self-indulgent pleasure for me. I've always wanted to do a theatre AU, having worked in theatre myself for a long time, and recently I've become enamoured of stage manager John, but I've been waiting for the right bunny to bite. And then I was thinking of doing a series of Jane Austen adaptions, and suddenly this story arrived in my head pretty much from start to finish. So this is very loosely based on the Jane Austen novel Persuasion. 
> 
> I don't know whether everybody knows what a DSM is. Basically, a DSM (or Deputy Stage Manager) sits in on reherasals and records everything that happens in rehearsal, the blocking, props, setting, technical cues, etc. They also call the show, meaning they're in charge of backstage during performances. I hope the rest of the theatre lingo is self-explanatory.  
> I was a DSM for some time, but not in England, so not everything in here is 100% accurate for English productions. I also took the liberty to ignore previews, which as I understand it are pretty standard in the English system but aren't where I'm from. 
> 
> Also, every theatre story in this fic is true.
> 
> The play, in case you care, is God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, and I chose it for two reasons: Small cast, and I worked on it. It has no significance for the plot whatsoever.
> 
> Thank you, notjustmom, for the beta!!
> 
> Also, I'm raina-at on tumblr.

Prologue

The first time John Watson fell in love in a theatre, it was an abstract thing, almost a calling.

When John was in his second year of med school, his flatmate at the time was involved in a student theatre company that put on truly awful productions, but had so much fun doing it that nobody cared. They were doing an all-girls version of Richard III when their lighting tech got sick with a virulent stomach flu three days before opening. John was used to all-nighters, and helping out his flatmate was a very good excuse to delay going home for Christmas by a week, and he also had a bit of a crush on one of the actresses. He sat down with a manual, learned to operate a light desk and programmed sixty-six light cues within 24 hours. When the curtain went up on opening night, he was exhausted and hadn't slept in far too long, but as the lights dimmed, a hush fell over the audience. The curtain rose, and as he hit his first cue perfectly, John Watson fell in love with theatre. 

On the next production he was in charge of props, lighting and sound design. The production after that, he was property master and had a minor part and hated every second he was on stage, missing the quiet and the darkness of the wings, the scurrying activity behind the scenes.   
The following production, he was made stage manager.

It was six months before he realised he’d effectively dropped out of Uni without even realising it in the constant rhythm of rehearsal, performance, rehearsal, performance, but around that time he got his first actual, paying job with an actual theatre company, and he hasn’t looked back since.

*-*

The second time John Watson fell in love in a theatre, it was concrete, immediate and terrifying, and it ended with him getting his heart broken.


	2. Chapter 2

Generally speaking, emergency meetings at the manager’s office first thing aren’t especially encouraging signs. Two weeks to press night, you just know it’s going to be bad. So John is unsurprised to see glum faces when he walks into Mrs Hudson’s office on Monday. 

“What happened?” he asks without preamble. 

Greg, who’s directing the production John is currently rehearsing, rubs a hand over his face. He looks like he hasn’t slept much, if at all. “Good morning to you too, John, thanks, I’m well, would you care for a cuppa?”

John takes the second chair across from Mrs Hudson’s desk. “We’ve got rehearsal in an hour and I have to set up. I don’t have time for pleasantries.”

Greg sighs. “About the rehearsal…”

Mrs Hudson cuts in. “Jim quit.” She looks over at Greg. “John’s right, we don’t have time to waste. One of our lead actors just walked out of the production, we have twelve days to press night. I’m open to suggestions.”

“Jim quit?” John repeats, incredulous. An actor walking out of a production this late is almost unheard of. 

“Last night. Tried to blackmail me into paying him more, threatened he’d quit. I told him to go ahead. He did,” Mrs Hudson answers, and John is once more struck by the disparity of her. Little old lady on the outside, pure steel on the inside. 

John whistles tonelessly. “I always knew he was a tosser, never thought he was stupid.”

“Question is, what do we do now?” Lestrade asks. He reaches into his pockets for his cigarettes, then remembers the cardinal rule: No smoking in the office.

Mrs Hudson’s already looking at the Wall, a giant cork board featuring the head shots of every actor who’s ever done a production at Baker Street Theatre and is worth re-hiring. “It was difficult to cast in the first place,” she muses, looking at the thirty something male section of the Wall. 

“We need somebody who’s done it recently,” Lestrade points out. 

Mrs Hudson’s eyes settle on a picture. “Not necessarily,” she muses, pointing at the picture she’s looking at.

“That was four years ago, as far as I remember.” Lestrade sounds doubtful. 

“Doesn’t matter.” Mrs Hudson waves away the point with a dismissive gesture. 

Lestrade looks from the picture to John, who very carefully keeps his face blank, even though his heart is beating a mile a minute. “So it’s true?”

John nods. “He could recite every part he’s ever had word-perfectly, back to primary school nativity plays. But he won’t do it, he’s been in New York for six years, he won’t come back for something he’s done before. You know how he is. He never does anything twice.”

“But he’s back,” Mrs Hudson says, turning to John, surprised. “He moved back just a few weeks ago. I had lunch with him three weeks ago. I thought you knew, you two used to be thick as thieves.”

It takes every ounce of self-restraint for John not to flinch. “If he’s here he might just do it, but you need to ask him yourself. He’s always liked you,” he notes, sidestepping Mrs Hudson’s implied question. 

Mrs Hudson looks at Lestrade. “Greg?”

Lestrade shrugs. “I’m on board. He’s a pain, but he’s good, and he’s a damned sight nicer than Jim, though that’s admittedly a low bar.”

Mrs Hudson and Lestrade go on hashing out details, but John only listens with half an ear, most of his attention focussed on the headshot Mrs Hudson was indicating before.

_He was so young back then,_ he thinks. _We both were._

Absently, he wonders what six years have done to Sherlock Holmes. Well, he’s about to find out. 

*-*

After setting up for rehearsal, he goes to get Greg from the steps of the stage entrance, where he’s sitting having a pre-rehearsal smoke. 

He sits down next to Lestrade. “How do you want to do this today?”

“No idea. Just play it by ear,” Greg answers, then coughs.

John grins. “You really should quit, Lestrade, that shit will kill you.”

“Piss off,” Lestrade answers affectionately. He turns his head to turn a scrutinising gaze at John. “You all right?”

“Of course,” John answers immediately. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Greg sighs and runs a hand over his face, his exhaustion showing in his eyes. “I was there six years ago, remember?” he says gently. 

John looks away from Greg’s compassionate gaze. “It was a long time ago,” he says, but he knows his voice lacks conviction. Truth be told, he doesn’t even really know whether he’s dreading seeing Sherlock again or whether he’s wildly curious, it’s all a jumbled mess of disquiet in his stomach. But then again, that’s just the way Sherlock used to make him feel back in the day, arse over ears and butterflies. 

Greg puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “Just tell me if you can’t handle it, all right?”

John snorts. “I don’t have time for any feelings, Greg. There’s too much to do. Speaking of, there’s a room full of actors waiting for us.”

He gets up and so does Greg, stubbing out his cigarette. Greg looks grim. “Let’s do this.”

John nods, and just hopes that, between rehearsals, finishing the set, getting the last of the props together, rigging the lights, tech rehearsals, and breaking in a new lead actor, he won’t have time to think of anything not strictly work-related. Like his ex-boyfriend. Who’s suddenly back in town after six years of radio silence. 

John runs his hand through his hair. This is going to be a very long run.

*-*

The call comes on a Monday morning. Sherlock takes off his safety goggles and checks who it is, then sighs heavily. 

He’s sorely tempted to hit ‘ignore’, but he knows Martha Hudson. She’ll try again and again until she gets him on the phone. 

“When do rehearsals start?” he asks, skipping the pleasantries and getting right to the heart of the matter. 

“Five weeks ago,” Mrs Hudson answers breezily, ignoring his rudeness. She’s always taken his directness in stride, and he appreciates her for that, among other things. 

Surprised, Sherlock puts down the pipette he was still holding. “What happened?”

“Terminal case of arsehole career suicide,” Mrs Hudson answers. “Jim Moriarty dropped out of my production yesterday evening. Press night is next Saturday.”

Sherlock grins, glad Mrs Hudson can’t see his face. Two weeks to press night. Good. He likes a challenge, and he likes Mrs Hudson. “What’s the part?” 

Mrs Hudson tells him, and some of the elation leaves Sherlock, because it isn’t nearly so challenging when it’s a part he’s done before. He and Mycroft agreed he’d only take parts that challenge him artistically or would look good on his resume, and this will do neither. Baker Street Theatre is too small to get him any prestige, and he made it a personal rule not to do anything twice. It’s difficult enough not to get bored during rehearsals as it is. On the other hand, it’s early May and he starts rehearsals for his project at the National in early August, and he’s got nothing on in-between, partly because he was supposed to be in the US until the end of June, but the project he was supposed to be doing fell through. 

Also, Mrs Hudson has so far not pointed out that Sherlock owes her a favour, but she’s going to any second now. Also, he loathes Moriarty, and taking a part that was supposed to be his and doing it better with two weeks of rehearsals would really grate on Jim. 

“Fine.” He doesn’t point out the fact that she should have gone through his agent, because he appreciates the time constraint, and also, if she’d gone through his agent, he would have been almost forced to say no. 

“Great! Thank you so much, Sherlock, you’re a lifesaver! I’m afraid we can’t pay you nearly as much as you’d be used to by now.”

“Just pay me more than Moriarty. Even if it’s just a hundred pounds.” 

“Oh, dear, gladly. I’ll make sure it gets ‘round to him, too.”

Sherlock grins. There’s a reason he adores Martha Hudson. 

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you come in right away?” Mrs Hudson asks. “We can deal with the contract and you can start rehearsing this afternoon. John will give you the script then. You remember John, right?”

Sherlock freezes, and his good mood bursts like a bubble. “Of course. He’s… still there?” he asks, hating himself a little for the small catch in his voice. 

“Of course,” Mrs Hudson answers. “Baker Street Theatre would collapse without John Watson. Well, got to go, bye now, darling, and thank you again, ever so much.”

She hangs up.

Sherlock just sits there, still pressing the now silent mobile to his ear. 

Six years. It should make a difference that it’s been six years. Six years should have transformed John Watson into a footnote. A side note. A fleeting, fond remembrance. 

Sherlock has a reputation of having a nearly perfect memory. And while this is undeniably an advantage in a profession where you need to memorise not only a lot of text but also scene blocking, songs and choreography, it does have its drawbacks. Namely, when Sherlock goes into his mind palace, he can recall every single line of dialogue he has ever spoken on stage, but he can also relive, in perfect detail, the exact moment he broke John Watson’s heart. The look on his face, the expression in his eyes and the words he spoke. 

If he wanted to, if he was masochistic enough, he could go back and count every time John smiled at him, every time they walked home together after rehearsal or performance, the cool London air refreshing on their flushed faces after the stuffy heat of the theatre, both elated from the adrenaline rush of a good live performance, or tired from a stressful rehearsal, or joking about something that went wrong, a funny line, an odd audience reaction, a missed cue, a dropped prop. Every time John took his hand, hesitant and shy, every time his heart soared at the touch, every time he unlocked the overcomplicated door to his tiny flat with fingers trembling with nerves and desire, every time John backed him against that door and kissed him, tasting of cheap backstage coffee and powdered creamer, every time they’d exchange a secret smile during long rehearsals, or a look that contained a shared joke. Every time he looked at John before a show and knew he’d be watching and the adrenaline jolt making the performance that much better, that much sharper and clearer and more immediate.

He hasn’t felt like that since. He’s almost forgotten what that feeling was. He’s tried to replicate it, with drugs and no sleep and no food and sometimes all of the above. But it’s eluded him so far.

He wonders if it’s still there. The power of John Watson’s attention. He wonders if he even wants to know. 

For a moment, his finger hovers over the call back button. He can still say no. He hasn’t signed anything. He can still back out. He should. He made a choice six years ago not to let emotion get in the way of making himself the best actor he can be. 

But if he says no because of John Watson, he will do what he swore he wouldn’t do. He’ll cede power over his professional life to his heart instead of his head. So in a way, this is the ultimate challenge. And Sherlock Holmes loves nothing more than a challenge.

He showers, dresses and is out in the streets of London as quickly as he can, so he won’t have a chance to talk himself out of it. 

*-*

John isn’t nervous. He is not. He’s not checking his watch every twenty seconds. He hasn’t checked that all props are pre-set to Act 1, Scene 1 a thousand times. He isn’t suppressing the urge to pace. He isn’t leafing through his book with unwarranted fascination. He’s not ignoring the rest of the cast who are lounging around in an after-lunch-break-energy-low sort of way, waiting for Sherlock Holmes to arrive so they can run through the play with him for the first time. 

And he certainly isn’t rehearsing how to play this in his head. He hasn’t, has not tried out several first lines to Sherlock in his head. He’s definitely not going back and forth between Hello, Hi and Good Afternoon, Mr Holmes. No, definitely not Mr Holmes. Pretending they don’t know each other won’t work. 

John pauses as a thought occurs to him he hasn’t had before. Maybe Sherlock really doesn’t remember him. Maybe Sherlock’s deleted him from his hard-drive of a memory, maybe John’s space in the Sherlock Holmes Mind Palace was taken up by a play, or a new boyfriends, or several new boyfriends, or a wife, or husband, six children…

With an effort, John calms himself. If he starts down this road, he’ll never get through the production. He reminds himself that the fact that Sherlock was this epic, wild, head-over-heels-world-spinning-heart-thumping-larger-than-life affair in his mind, doesn’t mean their relatively short relationship wasn’t some casual fling for Sherlock he remembers fondly but doesn’t hold any significance six years later. The way it ended does seem to suggest that all he’d been for Sherlock was a bit of fun and some extremely good sex. 

Which is fine, he reminds himself. He’d just misread Sherlock’s intensity, the razor-sharp focus and consuming interest he brings to everything he does, for love. Admittedly when Sherlock suddenly and preemptively broke up with him it was a bit like being dropped from a high-rise and shattering onto the pavement into vaguely John-Watson-coloured pieces, but he’s long since put himself together and the cracks are barely visible. He just needs to make sure Sherlock doesn’t see them at all. It will be easy.

He goes into the tiny kitchen next to the rehearsal room to get himself his approximately tenth cup of over-steeped tea. Not because he thinks he necessarily needs more caffeine - he has no desire to actually vibrate out of his skin - but he needs something to do with his hands, and holding a hot cup of tea has a viscerally calming effect on him.

It’s ten minutes to two when the door to the rehearsal room opens, and Sherlock walks in with Lestrade, who met him in Mrs Hudson’s office to go over the contract details.

The rest of the cast rise to their feet, and John straightens from where he was slouching against the doorframe of the kitchen. 

He hears Irene whisper to Adriana, “We get to exchange Jim Moriarty for this? I must’ve been a very good girl lately.” She smirks. “It’s been far too long since I’ve had a good production fling.”

John grits his teeth and reminds himself of the many reasons he’s never liked Irene very much.

“Is he in costume?” Adriana whispers back, confused by Sherlock’s sharp dress pants and crisp shirt, a marked contrast to the jeans and ratty t-shirts the rest of the cast are wearing for rehearsals. John bites back a smile. For Sherlock, no suit jacket and the rolled-up sleeves of his designer shirt are casual wear.

Before either of them can answer, Lestrade joins them, Sherlock in tow. 

Lestrade introduces Sherlock to the rest of the cast, which consists of only three other actors, Irene, Adriana, who plays Sherlock’s character’s wife, and Sebastian Moran, who’s playing Irene’s husband. While Sherlock greets the other actors John has a few seconds to note that he’s a little broader in the shoulders and has filled in a little in the face. He’s no longer all angles and bones, but he hasn’t lost his efficient leanness and the way he moves in his well-tailored suits, all dynamic grace. 

Then they turn to John, and there’s a pregnant pause. Sherlock looks at John and gives him a cooly professional, and entirely noncommittal nod. “Hello, John.”

John swallows hard. He’d forgotten that goddamned voice. “Hello, Sherlock.” He smiles back, and he hopes it looks genuine. “Thanks for helping us out.”

Sherlock shrugs, clearly uncomfortable. “I was bored anyway.”

John huffs a bit in surprised amusement. “Well, good for us, I suppose. Come on, I’ve got your book here.”

He walks over to the table he’s commandeered as his own and hands Sherlock the script. “I’ve highlighted the cuts in a different colour for you, I figured it would be easier for you to know which lines to delete than the other way around.”

Sherlock nods his thanks and starts leafing through the pages. 

John nods, satisfied with himself so far. He’s calm. Professional, helpful. Everything a good DSM should be. He goes through details of rehearsal times and wardrobe fittings with a minimum of fuss. This is easy. He knows how to do this. He’s worked with loads of actors he couldn’t stand, or thought were idiots, or had a little crush on. 

Admittedly, he’s never worked with an actor he used to be soul-crushingly in love with who dumped him like hot coals and broke his heart into a million splinters, but there’s a first time for everything.

Lestrade claps his hands. “So, people. We’ve got ten rehearsal days. At least four of these days we’ll spend in tech. So let’s get started.”

Irene smiles at Sherlock. “This is going to be fun.”

Sherlock smiles back, all easy charm, and John grits his teeth and nods at Lestrade. “From the top?”

*-*

Two hours later, they’ve done the first run-through, and Sherlock already knows this won’t be a challenge at all. The play is basically four people sitting in a living room and talking, so the blocking isn’t very complicated, and Sherlock knows all his lines. He could probably go on tonight and be good enough. But Lestrade and Moriarty chose the most boring interpretation of his character, a mistake Sherlock intends to rectify.

He focuses a part of his mind on monitoring what Lestrade is saying, and lets his attention wander to the other actors. Irene is very good, and she knows it, and it’s going to be fun playing off her. Moran is uncomfortable because he’s friends with Jim and uncertain whether he should quit out of solidarity. Adriana is charming and easy-going, and a decent actress. 

John is… Sherlock can’t let himself think about what John is. 

John has been mostly silent, occasionally correcting Lestrade about the blocking or a prop, cooly professional, the perfect DSM as always, looking unfazed and unflappable the way only John Watson can. He’d forgotten this about John, how he was always so calm in the chaos of backstage, especially when something went wrong, how he’d never yell or run or lose that almost zen-like quality of being within the eye of the storm.

Sherlock would very much like to have five uninterrupted minutes to stare at John to update his mental database of him. But that would surely make things awkward, so he allows himself only the smallest of glances, and always when Lestrade is giving a note to another actor, and John’s attention is on them.

John’s hair is still short and blond, but a bit longer than he used to wear it. He’s grown into his sturdiness, and the black t-shirt he is wearing shows off his broad shoulders and muscled arms. He’s a bit scruffy, hasn’t shaved this morning - early meeting, paint splatter on his shoes - went to check on the set, squints lightly - should get glasses but won’t, stubbornness - and that’s another thing he remembers, suddenly, the stubbornness that made John work three days with a broken toe, and coming to work with the worst cough Sherlock has ever heard in his life.

“Sherlock? Any input?”

Sherlock snaps back to the present and Lestrade, who’s standing in the middle of the set. He briefly tracks back through the conversation he was listening to with one ear. Lestrade was explaining the way he sees the characters, and amazingly only half the things he said were stupid.

“First of all, I refuse to be bound by anything Jim Moriarty did or did not do with this character, as clearly he’s an idiot who has no idea what he’s doing.” He can hear Moran’s sharp intake of breath, but goes on as if he hadn’t noticed. “Playing him as an unrelenting arsehole is boring, which is as we all know the cardinal sin of theatre. Second, I respect the hard work you’ve all put into the play so far, but we have five days before we move to the stage, and that should be more than enough to make adjustments, given that this is pretty much an hour and thirty minutes of people sitting on sofas and being varying degrees of rude to each other.” 

Lestrade nods thoughtfully, and Sherlock spares a moment to be grateful Lestrade is directing, because he knows Sherlock hates politely tiptoeing and always comes right to the point. “We won’t throw away five weeks of work because you don’t like the direction we’ve taken the character in, but we can certainly adjust and come up with a version we’re both comfortable with.”

Sherlock suppresses a smirk. Asserting authority while simultaneously giving Sherlock what he wants. Lestrade has indeed grown up as a director.

“While we’re at shaking things up, how about some sexual tension?” Irene asks, giving Sherlock an insinuating smile.

“Good idea.” He smiles at Irene and lets his eyes drop ever so slightly towards her ample and very attractive cleavage. “Like this?” 

Lestrade nods and Irene smiles like the cat that got the cream. “Perfect,” she almost purrs.

Lestrade gestures at the stage. “Let’s do a run-through and try it out. Adriana, you notice right away, Seb, you only notice when I tell you to, right? And just go with it, we’ll refine it as we go along. Let’s take ten while John resets.”

John gets up from his table as the actors move either outside into the small courtyard that separates the rehearsal area from the theatre proper, or to the tiny kitchen to get a drink.

Sherlock stays in his seat for a moment, closing his eyes to visualise the play, planning out the scenes where he can insert some subtle flirting. 

“Um…”

Sherlock opens his eyes and sees John hover next to the sofa he’s sitting on. He’s rubbing the back of his neck, and Sherlock recognises the gesture as a sign that John is uncomfortable. He ruthlessly suppresses the little voice in his head that says, _God he looks good, good enough to eat, remember how you used to bury your nose in the fine hairs on the back of his neck, the very place his fingers are right now…_

“You need me to get out of here so you can reset?” Sherlock guesses, and John gives him a slightly embarrassed nod.

“You want some coffee?” John asks, gesturing at the kitchen. “I made a fresh pot after lunch, so it should still be somewhat liquid.”

“Does Mrs Hudson still buy the coffee beans that taste like asphalt and shoes?” 

John snorts. “Oh God, yes. Some things never change.”

“I was surprised you’re still here,” Sherlock says out of absolutely nowhere, and he snaps his mouth shut and curses his badly developed brain to mouth filter.

John looks up from cleaning glasses with a frown. “Why wouldn’t I be? I make decent money, and Mrs Hudson is the only theatre owner I know who isn’t a narcissistic sociopath.”

Sherlock shrugs. “I just thought you’d moved on.”

“I did.” John looks at him steadily and there’s a world of subtext in these two words that Sherlock doesn’t need translated.

He nods, briskly, acknowledging John’s unspoken point that it is absolutely none of Sherlock’s business what John does with his life. “Sorry, I….”

John raises a hand, interrupting him. “It’s fine, Sherlock. Really. It’s all fine. Just, let’s keep this professional, all right?”

“Of course,” Sherlock says and gestures at the kitchen. “I think I will risk the coffee.”

He all but flees into the kitchen and fixes himself a cup of coffee, then drinks it without really tasting it.

Professional, he tells himself. Be professional. Do your bloody job, and be grateful the ex whose heart you broke is over it and prepared to act like a mature adult. It’s more than you had any right to expect. 

The problem is, of course, that he thought six years would have cleared the odd fixation with having John Watson’s undivided attention out of his system, but apparently, that’s not true, because here he is, two hours in, and he’s already having a hard time concentrating on anything else. But he needs to put this behind him. John can do it, he can look at Sherlock and be completely calm, be the perfect DSM who never gets nervous, never gets flustered, never says he’s tired or hungry or needs a break, and if he can be in the same room with Sherlock and not feel anything, then Sherlock can do it too. 

The other actors come back in and Sherlock places his empty mug in the sink. He suddenly just wants to get this day over with as quickly as humanly possible. He walks out of the kitchen into the rehearsal room.

“Can we get started? I thought I heard somewhere that there’s a certain amount of time constraint.”

From the corner of his eyes, he can see John’s lips twitch in suppressed amusement, and adrenaline floods his body, making his fingers tingle. 

Pull yourself together, Holmes. Making him smile is like cocaine. A sudden, incredible rush and the inevitable come-down when you realise it can never last. 

*-*

After the second run-through, the cast is done for, and so is Lestrade. John reminds them of rehearsal tomorrow at ten, and by ten he means start rehearsing at ten, not slink in at five past and then have a fag and a cuppa. He looks pointedly at Irene, and she smiles back sweetly and gives him a mock salute. “Yes, Captain.”

She turns to Sherlock as they walk out the door. “How about a getting to know you drink?”

John doesn’t hear Sherlock’s answer, but he watches them from the window as Irene puts her hand on Sherlock’s arm and Sherlock leans closer to catch what she’s saying. He rests his forehead on the cool glass and lets out a deep breath. He’s made it through Day 1 of ten days rehearsal and 30 days of performances without killing anybody and without completely embarrassing himself. He’s been professional, calm and polite. And it’s hell. 

If only Sherlock wasn’t still as brilliant, sarcastic, magnetic, graceful, amazing, rude, caustic, funny, gorgeous… 

Stop it, he tells himself. Don’t go down that road. 

He cleans up the room and sets up for the rehearsal tomorrow morning, then heads over to the main theatre. The carpenters are constructing the set, and he checks on their progress. He checks with Sally from wardrobe that the fitting for Sherlock is on for Wednesday, and with Molly from props that the contraption they’ve constructed to make Adriana’s vomiting scene look realistic works and is good to go for tech week. He goes to check whether Mike, their chief stage manager, is still in, but his office is dark and there’s a sweet-sour Whisky-vomit smell in the air that tells him Mike wasn’t exactly in top form when he left. Well, he’s used to it. 

When he’s sure that everybody’s set for tomorrow, he goes backstage into the green room that serves as the stage crew’s office and helps himself to a beer from the fridge. He sits down on the decrepit sofa and takes a deep breath. 

“Oi, Watson, who died?” Mary, their lighting designer, asks as she drops down next to him on the sofa. “We thought you’d be ecstatic to be rid of Jim. I know I am.”

He rubs a tired hand over his face. “Didn’t you hear who they hired to replace him?”

“Who?” Mary asks, stealing his beer and taking a sip before handing it back.

“Sherlock Holmes.”

“Bloody hell.” Mary takes away his beer and pulls him to his feet. “You need something stronger than beer. Come on.”

*-*

“Who the hell is Sherlock Holmes?” Sally asks, taking a pint from Mary, who did the bar run.

They’re wedged into a table of their favourite pub, just around the corner from the theatre, where the owner knows their names and turns a blind eye to the occasional cigarette. John’s sitting between Mary and Molly, and Sally and Dimmock, their carpenter/sound designer/driver, on the opposite side.

“The man who killed John’s pretenses of heterosexuality,” Mary answers, looping an arm around John’s shoulders and giving him an affectionate squeeze. He catches Mary exchanging a look with Molly, the only crew member around long enough to actually remember the episode. Molly subtly shakes her head, and Mary grimaces. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” John turns to Sally. “He and I started at Baker Street Theatre at the same time. We had a steady cast of actors that season, so we were always rehearsing the next play while performing in the evenings with the same cast, and it was… well, intense. Sherlock was…” John trails off, lost in memory. _He was the best I’d ever seen, so much raw, unformed talent, brilliant, off book from day one, magnetic, gorgeous, rude to the point of abrasiveness, so easily bored, so lonely…_

He clears his throat. “We spent a lot of time together. We were both young and practically lived at the theatre.”

“Well, that hasn’t changed,” Mary interjects.

John shuts Mary up with a look. “Anyway, we,” he makes a vague gesture with his fingers, “you know.”

“It was sort of sweet, actually,” Molly says. “It was pretty obvious from the start that Sherlock was smitten with John, and we were all laying bets as to when Sherlock was going to pounce, and whether John would notice-”

“Well, look at him. He’s... “ John makes a vague gesture at the air representing Sherlock, and then gestures at himself. “And I’m…”

“He’s a prat, and you’re a catch, John, and everybody agreed, even back then, that he was the lucky one.” Molly gives John an affectionate smile. “So Sherlock was quite clear about his interest, and John didn’t read the signs. The most blatant things went straight over his head. Once, we were talking about smoking, and John said kissing smokers is disgusting, and Sherlock just dropped his half-smoked cigarette and announced he was quitting, and John just… didn’t get it. Anyway, we were doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Sherlock was playing Puck, of course, and he wore these tiny green shorts and had his entire body painted with green glitter paint, and, well, that was John’s breaking point, and he spent the entire run covered in green paint, because Sherlock would snog John while he was still in make-up. I think he was trying to mark his property, make it obvious to everybody that John was his.”

Everybody laughs and John tries not to remember the many times Sherlock dragged him into a broom closet or the look and the thrilling sight of his fingerprints on Sherlock’s back.

“How long were you together?” Sally asks, watching John.

“The rest of the season. I thought it was going well, and then, suddenly, he just left.”

“It was pretty jarring,” Molly says, and all heads turn towards her, except for John’s, who’s keeping his eyes on his beer, uninterested in seeing the expression on Molly’s face. He’d seen it enough at the time. Bewilderment, and then a horrible, humiliating sort of pity. “One day I caught them snogging in the broom closet, and literally the next day Sherlock was gone. He’d talked Mrs Hudson into letting him out of his contract early. He was lucky, he wasn’t part of the cast that was performing, and it was near the end of the season, we could re-cast his part in the play we were rehearsing from the company, but it was a shock to all of us.”

“And he didn’t even say goodbye?” Sally asks, incredulous.

“He did,” John says, still addressing his beer. “He stood me up the night before, and then in the morning he came by my flat, handed me a plastic bag with all the odds and ends I’d left in his flat over the months, and pretty much said I was a distraction he couldn’t afford, that he had his career to think of and goodbye. And that was the last time I saw him.”

“What an arsehole!” Sally’s outraged, and the entire table nods along.

John shrugs. “Not really. We were young, and we were just having a bit of fun. He never said…” he trails off, because he can’t finish that sentence. _He never said he loved me. Never said he wanted to stay. Never made any promises, never implied a distant future. But he kissed me like he was starving and when we had sex it was all-consuming and breathtaking, and he never ever left after sex, and the way he used to look at me..._

John swallows hard against the lump in his throat and looks out of the window. “Just, can we not talk about this anymore?”

“Of course,” Mary immediately says and hands John a shot of vodka. “Just one, you’ve got rehearsals in the morning, and we need at least one sober stage manager.”

“Was Mike even in today?”

Molly nods. “But he took a two-hour lunch, and when he came back, he was nearly incoherent. We sent him home after he was sick all over the crew bathroom.”

“You have to talk to Mrs Hudson, John,” Sally says, and everybody at the table nods in agreement. 

“I know. But he’s my mentor, he taught me so much, and he’s having a rough time of it with the divorce.” 

“We all love him, John, but he’s not doing his job,” Molly says.

John lets out a deep breath. “I’ll talk to Mrs Hudson. But first I need to get through tech week, all right?” He downs his shot of vodka. “May I have just one more?”

Mary smiles at him affectionately. “All right. But just one.”

*-*

John is in at eight the next morning, wishing he hadn’t had that second shot. Or the third one. Or the fourth one.

He’s sipping on a cup of tea, checking his emails and waiting for the others to come in, enjoying the moment of quiet so rare in theatre. The stage is in disarray, and the auditorium isn’t much better, half the seats have headlights and spots and other lighting equipment on them, but he knows that by Friday, all this chaos will have resolved itself, and when the audience comes in next Saturday, everything will be perfect. At least as far as the audience can see.

Slowly, the crew files in. Dimmock and the other stage hands, Mary, wordlessly getting the lighting plan and vanishing into the theatre, Molly grabbing the can of spray paint to help with painting the set. Sally won’t be in until the final fitting tomorrow afternoon, since this is a very low-maintenance production for her. Four people, modern, no costume changes. Boring, as Sherlock would say. 

Don’t go there, he chides himself. 

By nine, Mike’s not in and the carpenters need supplies, so John places a few orders and charges Dimmock with picking them up, then he gets to work in the rehearsal room. The pre-set is perfect, so he starts coffee and makes a pot of tea, then he sets out fresh glasses and re-fills the water, sets out the cake they’re eating in the first half of the play, and then he’s still got forty minutes before the actors are due to arrive. 

He re-checks his setting and goes over to the theatre once more to see whether everybody’s doing all right. 

Anything not to think of the day ahead he will be spending watching Sherlock Holmes at work.


	3. Chapter 3

Day two of rehearsals, and they’ve already done a complete run-through by lunch. John and Lestrade are off somewhere having a meeting about something or other- The rest of the cast has scattered to get something to eat, and Sherlock is looking forward to some peace and quiet. Unfortunately, they come back with their lunch and sit all over the rehearsal room, chatting, trying to include him in the conversation. Irene’s got an audition, and she’s worried because she slightly exaggerated the quality of her French.

“That’s stupid, why would you do that,” Sherlock says. He’s never understood that.

“Oh, come on, everybody does it.”

“I don’t,” Sherlock gives an indignant huff. 

“Really?” Irene takes out her phone and pulls up Sherlock’s resume on his agency's website. “So you can play the violin at concert level and speak any foreign language given two weeks’ notice?”

“Of course.”

“And you have a Master’s degree in chemistry?”

Sherlock shrugs. “I sat my A-Levels when I was sixteen. I had two years to kill before I could apply to RADA. Long story short, yes, the stories are true, I am a genius.”

Seb scoffs. “Come off it.”

“Last time I did this play it was four years ago and I make less mistakes than you, even though you’ve done it every day for the last five weeks,” Sherlock points out. “And you’d better forget everything Jim told you about me. You’d also better decide now whether or not to quit in solidarity, since you’ve been clearly thinking about it, as it would be incredibly boring to have to do all the work we’re doing now again. And, you should mention to John that you’re allergic to strawberries, he won’t buy strawberry cake next time if he knows.”

Seb, who’s been scratching at his arm, looks down at his hand and stops scratching. 

Irene grins. “Now me.”

Sherlock looks her up and down. “You tried to quit smoking recently and failed, and you’re late so often because your bicycle breaks down on the way to the theatre.” He points at her bitten cuticles and the smear of bicycle oil on her jeans. “You should tell the crew, they’d dislike you less if they knew.”

“Now me, now me,” Adriana says, grinning.

“You’ve discovered that being the crew’s darling is good for business, that’s why you bring John a raisin scone every day, extra points for knowing they’re his favourite, by the way. Also, you have a daughter, no more than three, and she’s in daycare somewhere near Shoreditch.”

“Wow.” Adriana seems genuinely impressed. Irene’s amused, and Seb is glaring at his shoes. 

Lestrade and John enter the space, and Lestrade says, “Wow, what?”

“Sherlock’s showing off,” Seb says, and there’s a slightly nasty undertone in his voice.

“He’s telling you all your life stories from the way you tie your shoelaces?” Lestrade guesses, and Adriana grins.

“Bit freaky if you ask me,” Seb mutters. 

“Good thing nobody asked you then, is it?” John says, and there’s a subtle note of steel in his voice that everybody in the room takes a note of. He gives Seb a pointed glare and Seb looks away.

Sherlock swallows and looks at his fingers, trying to hide the little shiver that involuntarily runs down his spine at that tone of voice.

“What did he say to you when you first met?” Irene asks Lestrade.

“That I should stop covering up my insecurities by yelling at my DSM. Completely destroyed my authority with the cast, but it was actually pretty constructive advice in the long run,” Lestrade says with a grin, and everybody laughs.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock watches as John looks down and smiles, because Lestrade fails to mention that John was the DSM in question at the time. 

“And what did he say to you, John?” Irene asks, looking at John with narrowed eyes.

John looks at Sherlock, and for the first time, Sherlock has the feeling John is actually looking at Sherlock the person, not Sherlock the actor. He’s even smiling a bit. “Do you want to tell the story?” His tone is teasing, and Sherlock’s heart does a very impressive flip. 

“You do it,” Sherlock says, faking casual boredom, and succeeding rather well.

“He told me my drunk brother was going to get a divorce.”

“And was he right?” Irene asks.

“Well, my drunk _sister_ is very much divorced right now, so I’d say about half and half.”

“Well, honestly, her name is Harry, how was I supposed to know?”

“You could have, you know, asked?” 

“Boring,” Sherlock says dismissively.

Everybody laughs, except John, who looks down at his shoes, an unreadable expression on his face.

“How do you do it?” Adriana asks, and Sherlock snaps back to the conversation at hand.

Sherlock shrugs. “Easy. Observation. You do it all the time, too, you just don’t realise it. It’s our job as actors to behave like other people, and observing them, trying to understand how people who have certain characteristics act, helps us be better actors.”

“Speaking of acting,” Lestrade says, checking his watch. “Let’s get back to work.”

John seems to snap back to attention, and Sherlock realises that John was watching him, and he wonders what that means. 

*-*

Irene is flirting with him. And not subtly. Sherlock thinks he will have to have the talk with her soon. Right now he’s just trying to react as little as possible, because the tension elevates the performance. 

It bothers John, though. It’s subtle, and anybody not paying attention to John wouldn’t notice, but Sherlock’s awareness of John is constant, and he can see annoyance in the way John grips his pencil or clenches his jaw muscles. John would never, ever say anything, of course, but it’s there nonetheless.

And Sherlock finds this oddly satisfying. So far John has been perfectly professional, wearing his undemanding, quietly authoritative DSM persona. It’s indescribably odd, because Sherlock used to be able to coax a reaction out of John by just looking at him out of the corner of his eye. It’s odd remembering how he used to be able to catch John’s undivided attention by biting his lips, or giving him a fleeting smile, or taking a suggestion John would make privately into the rehearsal room. 

He knows he can’t go back to a John Watson whose eyes would go dark if Sherlock dropped his voice a little. He can’t even reasonably expect the John who used to tell him bad jokes, share backstage gossip, complain about his day. 

This John now is a friendly stranger who looks vaguely like somebody Sherlock once knew. The visible annoyance at Irene is the first crack in the facade. And it takes every ounce of self-restraint Sherlock has not to play it up just to goad a reaction out of John.

The thing is, Sherlock realises now that taking this part may have been a mistake. Because every time he looks at John, he feels like there’s a hollowed-out place behind his breastbone, and it aches like a scar during a storm. Something that used to be there is making its absence felt, pressing against his ribs and his lungs. 

He thought that seeing John again would finally convince him that he did the right thing six years ago, that there’s nothing there anymore, that John is ordinary and boring and not worth his time at all. 

Only of course the opposite happened, and he feels only now how much he’s really missed John, how much he’s still missing him, like pressing on a splinter reminds you it’s still there, under his skin, festering away. 

They’re nearing the end of their third run-through of the day and everybody can tell that the energy’s just completely gone. Adriana can barely get through her speech near the end, and Lestrade takes one look at them after they’re done and closes his book. “Notes tomorrow morning. Go home.”

John clears his throat. “Sherlock’s got a fitting in half an hour.”

“Oh, right. Thanks, John. Everybody except Sherlock, go home.”

The relief in the room is palpable, and the actors each go. Irene shrugs into her coat and leans down to Sherlock. “How about a coffee? Help you pass the time until your fitting? Maybe I could tag along to the fitting, even, give you my expert opinion?”

There’s an audible snapping sound, and everybody looks at John, who’s making notes in his book with his back turned to them and who just snapped the pencil he was holding in two. Silence descends. John looks down at his hand, clearly embarrassed, and mutters something about having to check with the carpenters, which is a poor excuse, because the rehearsal room is a mess, and Sherlock knows John would never leave the room like this. Adriana and Seb exchange a look and follow John out, and Lestrade looks between Irene and Sherlock.

“Irene,” Lestrade says. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Confused, Irene follows Lestrade out into the courtyard.

Sherlock remains, alone, quietly elated. It shouldn’t fill him with a secret joy that John is bothered by Irene’s blatant flirting, but it does, because it means that maybe, just maybe, John has not, in fact, moved on as successfully as he claims. And if that is in fact the case, maybe, just maybe, he can actually get John back. He’s very good at getting John Watson into bed, after all, at least he used to be. 

*-*

John curses himself for about the sixteenth time today. It is none of his sodding business if Sherlock decides to shag Irene. It’s none of his sodding business if Sherlock shags the entire company, separately or together. 

Doesn’t make it easier to watch. 

He shakes himself out of his funk, trying to ignore the pressure under his breastbone, and refocuses his attention on Molly’s words, who’s giving him an update on the construction. Apparently everything’s going as planned. Don Anderson, their set designer, is in today, and he brought the wallpaper he wants to use. John’s had a meeting with him and Mary and Lestrade during lunch to settle on the lighting design, and another meeting with Lestrade and Dimmock to settle on which of the six annoying ringtones Dimmock selected they’ll use for Sherlock’s character’s phone. 

Between re-setting the rehearsal room twice for the runs and actually sitting in on rehearsal, John hasn’t had a second to himself all day, and he’s enjoying five minutes of quiet in the green room while Sherlock is in the wardrobe department for his fitting with Sally, when Mary comes in and settles down next to him on the sofa.

She dumps the enormous binder she’s carrying onto the rickety coffee table and flips it open. Then she holds up two samples of napkins. “Linen or silk, what do you think?”

John lifts his head from the arm-rest and sits up. “What?”

“My wedding is in ten weeks, you arse! This morning, Janine dumped this giant binder into my lap. Everything in it is my job. So fucking linen or silk, John?”

“Why is this my problem?” John asks, but he’s sitting up and reaching for the fabric samples.

“Because you’re my best man, fuckface,” Mary says and chuffs him on the shoulder affectionately.

“Fine, fine,” John placates her and sinks back into the sofa cushions, holding the two samples. “Am I supposed to know the difference?”

Mary leans back and rests her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to fuck this up.”

John puts his arm around her and squeezes. “You won’t. Don’t worry.”

John groans when he hears Sally yelling. “What now?” he mutters without moving.

Sherlock enters the green room and gestures at him and Mary. “Ah. Good. Neutral observers.” He gestures at the suit he’s wearing. “Does this look like something a high-powered lawyer would wear to you?”

John looks him up and down critically. “It doesn’t look much different from what you normally wear.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock says. “See?” He rounds on Sally, who has followed him into the green room and is glaring at him in a way John is very familiar with from countless reactions to Sherlock from cast and crew alike. It’s the _One more word and I’ll murder him_ look. 

“We don’t have the budget for bespoke Armani or any of that shit,” Sally grates out through her teeth. “I can’t believe I have to spell this out for you. I thought you were supposed to be so very clever.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow as he turns on her, and John coughs. Twice. Sherlock starts, and turns around to look at John, and for a moment they hold each other’s eyes, both remembering, because this used to be their signal when John was sure Sherlock was about to say something from which there would be no coming back. He can see Sherlock struggle with whether to ignore John’s unspoken advice, then apparently decides that it isn’t worth it. “Obviously you don’t have the budget. I was about to suggest that I could bring something from home.”

“You have a bespoke Armani suit lying around at home?” Mary asks. Then she grins. “Perfect. Silk or Linen?”

Sherlock looks at the samples in John’s hands, and then at Mary, who’s still leaning against John, John’s arm draped casually around her. 

John belatedly remembers that Sherlock hasn’t met Mary yet. “Mary Morstan, lighting design. Sherlock Holmes, our newest cast member.”

Mary grins at Sherlock. “Charmed. Silk or linen?”

Sherlock still looks confused, but then his face does something complicated when he sees Mary’s engagement ring and the wedding binder and he connects the two to the question. For a split second, an emotion John can’t name flitters over his face, then the shutters come down and he says, “Silk. Of course. Unless you’re getting married in a barn.”

“Thank you!” Mary notes down something in the binder. “Lilies or roses? I mean, I hate roses, so lilies, I guess?”

Sherlock looks at her for a moment like he thinks she’s lost her mind. “John is allergic to lilies,” he finally snaps, the _you idiot_ heavily implied, if possibly only for John’s ears. He glares at Mary for a moment. “If you’ll excuse me, I want to get out of this polyester monstrosity.” With that he sweeps out and leaves the three crew members alone.

“Charming chap, your ex,” Mary deadpans, and John huffs a laugh. 

“He has his moments.” He gets up from the couch. “I should clean up the rehearsal room.”

“Traitor,” Mary mutters, then turns to Sally. “Sally. If not roses, then what?”

John laughs again, then leaves to clean up, leaving Sally and Mary arguing about which of them knows and cares less about flowers. 

*-*

Sherlock’s leaning against the wall next to the main entrance of the theatre, taking a deep drag of the cigarette he bummed from one of the stage hands and cursing himself for the biggest idiot in human history. 

John is getting married. Obviously, John is getting married. Obviously, John is getting married to a non-threateningly good-looking, nice blonde curvy woman who also works backstage, who’s exactly the type of woman John used to flirt with constantly before the two of them became involved. He remembers being insanely jealous of one particular girl at the ticket office, Sarah something or other, who John went out with twice before Sherlock finally had enough and snogged John into weak-kneed submission, and from then on John’s attention had been firmly on Sherlock, where it belonged.

The black car draws up in front of the theatre, and Sherlock stubs out the cigarette and gets in.

He nods at his brother in greeting and makes himself comfortable as the car enters early evening traffic.

“And when were you going to tell me that you took this job?” Mycroft asks in his most long-suffering tone.

“When it came up,” Sherlock answers, turning his gaze out of the window, watching the city go by. He’s almost forgotten how much he loves London. 

“I’m still your agent, Sherlock,” Mycroft reminds him. 

Sherlock snorts. “As if you’d let me forget.”

Mycroft doesn’t react, which annoys Sherlock even more. “Mummy and Father are also somewhat perplexed as to why you would take such an obvious step back on your career path. But then again, they don’t know about John Watson.”

“It has nothing to do with him,” Sherlock snaps. “I owed Mrs Hudson a favour. She let me out of my contract six years ago. If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to take that part in New York, and I wouldn’t be where I am now. I didn’t even know he was still there.”

“And if you had?” Mycroft asks, and the knowing condescension in his voice makes Sherlock’s teeth grate.

“Mind your own business, Mycroft.”

“You are my business. Literally.” 

Sherlock snorts. “You have plenty of other clients. Mummy, for one. Father, for another.” He gropes around for an especially nasty way to imply that it’s Mycroft’s way of contributing to the family business, seeing as he’s completely without any artistic ability, but he can’t find a good turn of phrase for the old insult right now, which is a sign of just how little he wants to have this conversation. “Can we just go and have dinner with them in peace?”

“If you were bored, all you needed to do was tell me. I had plenty of offers. I could have gotten you several television auditions, people who are very interested in you. I didn’t mention them because I was under the impression that you needed some time to re-acclimate yourself to life in London, and you needed some quiet time after last year.”

“I did.” _Last year ideed_ , Sherlock thinks. Last year is an euphemism Mycroft uses because he doesn’t like the word rehab. “I thought I did.”

“This is beneath you, Sherlock. The venue is small, the pay is bad, and you’ve already done the part. I thought we agreed that you’d only take parts that are artistically challenging to you. If you’re not challenged, you get bored, and that’s when you indulge in unhealthy behaviour. And I thought we agreed six years ago that you were better off not getting emotionally entangled. It draws your focus, Sherlock.”

“Well, you needn’t worry, because he’s getting married, all right?” Sherlock snaps, even though he knows he’s playing right into Mycroft’s hands by getting emotional. “He’s getting married, so you won’t have to worry about him ruining my career or pulling my focus or anything of the sort, because he’s gone, and he won’t come back, and I can’t even blame him, because I did exactly what you wanted me to. I broke his heart, and now I can’t even make it up to him, because he’s getting fucking married. But as long as I’m one step closer to winning that bloody Tony, who bloody cares.”

The car stops at a red light, and Sherlock gets out and walks away, because he is one hundred percent certain he doesn’t want to hear whatever Mycroft has to say, and he isn’t sure he’d be able to hear it through the ringing in his ears and the crunching sound of his heart breaking.

He gets out his phone and dials. “Are you still available for dinner?”

*-*

John wakes up with a crick in his neck. It’s not the first time he slept in the green room, and it won’t be the last, but he never likes it. He always feels vaguely hungover and disgusting.

Fortunately, they all have lockers at the theatre, so John gets out some fresh clothing he stores there for exactly this purpose, and his toothbrush, and goes to shower. The tiny backstage bathroom is disgusting, but anything is better than facing the day the way he is.

The milk has gone off again, so he gets breakfast at Speedy’s next door. Mr. Chatterjee doesn’t even ask him for his order anymore, just hands him two scones and a cup of coffee on sight. The fact that every vendor in walking distance of the theatre knows his order on sight and he doesn’t even remember where the nearest Tesco from his flat is says some things about his life he isn’t that comfortable thinking about.

When he gets back to the theatre, the stage hands have arrived, and Mike is actually in his office.

“Morning,” John says, sticking his head in. “You got a moment?”

Mike waves him in and John sits down on the only other chair in the tiny office. Mike looks terrible; red-rimmed eyes, unshaven, tired, his skin has a clammy, pasty look that worries John. “You all right?”

Mike shrugs. “Been worse. What’s going on here?”

John gives a short update and says, “Mary needs help hanging lights, and the stagehands need supervision. Molly’s out shopping for the rest of the stuff today, and afterwards she’s in rehearsals with me, because we need to try out the vomiting, we need to know how much time the clean-up is going to take.”

Mike makes a face. “I’ve been stage manager for 30 years, John, I don’t need you to explain my job to me.” 

“Then do your job,” John says, calmly meeting Mike’s glare.

Mike looks away first. “I’m trying, John.”

“I know. But I’ve got three days to tech, a new cast member, the lights aren’t done, the stage is a mess, and I’m in rehearsals all day. I need you to pull it together for three days, Mike. Once we’re in tech, you can go on holiday for all I care. But I need a finished stage and every headlight in its place and focused by Monday, otherwise we’re fucked.”

Mike gives John a reassuring nod. “Don’t worry. I can hold it together for three days.”

“Good.” John gets up. “I’ll go get the rehearsal room ready.”

“How’s Holmes?” Mike calls after him. “Still an arsehole?”

“Better than Jim,” John points out. He doesn’t trust himself to say anything else.

Mike snorts a laugh, and dismisses John with a wave of his hand. John crosses the courtyard to the rehearsal room and hopes against hope that Mike will actually pull it together. 

*-*

When John gets to the rehearsal room, Sherlock is already there. He’s an early riser, or rather, John remembers, a non-sleeper, and he loves being the first in the room. 

He’s lying on the prop sofa with his eyes closed, fingers steepled under his chin, and John knows that he’s running through the play. For Sherlock, rehearsal is happening in these minutes, in his head. The rest of the day is for the other actors.

John doesn’t disturb him, just sets up the rehearsal room and makes coffee and tea. He gets himself a cup of tea and drinks it slowly, letting the warmth saturate him, eyes closed.

When he opens his eyes, Sherlock is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching him with a small frown line between his brows. John’s hands twitch with the urge to reach out and smooth that frown line away, like he always used to do. “Morning,” he says, glad that he has an excuse for his voice sounding slightly rough. It’s early, after all.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like shit,” Sherlock says, stepping around him to get himself a cup of tea. 

John shrugs. “Three days to tech, stage is not even half done, and I’ve got a new cast member. Plus, you know, it’s been a long season.”

Sherlock hums non-committedly, then turns to the fridge for the milk. “What about Mike? Why isn’t he taking meetings with Lestrade about lighting?”

John sighs and makes a what-can-you-do gesture. “He’s… got some problems.”

“Are you stage manager now, if he’s got some problems?”

“No, he’s still nominally in charge.”

“But you’re doing all his work.”

John shrugs. “Needs must. The work needs to be done, otherwise there won’t be a play.”

“So you’re working yourself to exhaustion to, what, save Mrs Hudson money?” Sherlock asks, his tone suggesting that he thinks John is an idiot.

John huffs a laugh. “You sound like Mary. She’s saying the exact same thing.”

“Well, maybe you’ll listen to _her_ ,” Sherlock bites out with a venom that surprises John, and walks out into the rehearsal room.

John frowns, confused. What the hell was that?

He rubs a hand over his face. Sherlock is nothing if not confusing. He’s watching John when he thinks John isn’t looking, then he’s flirting with Irene, then he shows concern for John and then snaps at him. John has no idea what Sherlock is thinking, but that’s nothing new. 

Slowly, the other actors come in. Adriana gets her usual hot water with lemon for her vocal cords, Seb’s glaring at everybody, dissatisfied with the way the production is going. Irene, on time for once.

She goes over to Sherlock, and since they’re not two feet away from the kitchen door, John can hear them talking, even though they’re trying to be quiet.

“So. Last night. Pity you didn’t stay,” Irene says, and the tone in her voice, light and flirty, does nothing to alleviate the knot in John’s stomach.

“I told you last night, I don’t sleep with co-workers.” A short pause. “Anymore.”

“That’s not what I’m hearing,” Irene quips.

For a moment, John thinks Sherlock won’t answer, then he says, quietly, calmly, “That was a mistake. One I won’t make again.”

John closes his eyes and breathes. He presses his hands against the cool surface of the kitchen counter. 

So that’s how Sherlock sees them. A mistake. It shouldn’t hurt this much after all this time, but it does. 

He thought that at least Sherlock remembers their time together fondly, even if it wasn’t meaningful the way it was for John. Well, now he knows.

He takes a deep breath and walks out into the rehearsal room to face another fucking day of the nightmare this production has turned into.

*-*

Sherlock smokes his third cigarette in two years when they break for tea in the afternoon. The day was gruelling, because most of it was spent on rehearsing the scene where Adriana vomits all over the stage, and by the end of it they were all exhausted and nauseous. 

Adriana’s leaning next to him, slightly green in the face. “Fucking hell, I have to do this every night for the next six weeks.”

Sherlock gives her a small smile. “The sheer glamour of this job is blinding.”

“You know, when I went to drama school, I thought about BAFTA galas and playing Juliet at National, and nobody told me that most of the real work happens in under heated, dingy rehearsal rooms and dressing rooms the size of shoeboxes you share with three other women.” Adriana grins. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, though.” She looks at him speculatively. “What are the dressing rooms like on Broadway?”

“Like everywhere else in the world, cold, small, and not especially clean.”

“You’re taking away all my illusions.”

“If you’ve still got any at your age, you need to leave this job right now.”

Adrianna laughs, and pats his arm affectionately. “I’ll go get tea. Want some?”

Sherlock shakes his head and takes another drag of his cigarette. The nicotine settles into his veins and calms the tingling under his skin. He’s restless, and it’s only partly from boredom. Most of it is the fact that John hasn’t looked at him once since this morning.

The door to the rehearsal room opens, and Irene steps out into the courtyard, lighting a cigarette. 

She sits down next to him on the small windowsill he’s perching against. For a moment, they smoke together in silence. Then she looks at him clinically. “So why did you really come to me last night?”

Sherlock shrugs. “Did you ever have the urge to do something stupid and self-destructive? You were the least stupid stupid thing I could think of.”

Irene grimaces. “Ouch.”

Sherlock doesn’t look over at her. “You did ask.”

Irene sighs. “Yes, I asked.” She takes a deep drag of her cigarette and lets the smoke out very slowly, watching the smoke clouds drift into the sky. “So I’m guessing there won’t be a repeat performance?”

“No.”

“Pity,” Irene says and turns to him with a questioning gaze. “You know, I was given to understand from Lestrade - by way of telling me to keep the flirting out of the rehearsal room - that you and John had, and I quote, ‘a pretty intense affair six years ago,’ and now you two can barely look at each other. What the hell happened?”

Sherlock stubs out his cigarette and gets up. “I fucked it up,” he says, short and precise. Then he walks away in search of a cup of tea. 

*-*

Sherlock puts down the violin and looks out of his window. His new flat is on Montague Street, and it’s nice, Victorian, messy but it suits him, and he can see the bustle of the street down below from his sitting room window.

He’s abandoned his newest experiment, because he can’t concentrate, because he can’t get John’s face out of his head, his movements today. He looked like he was in actual, physical pain, like there was something there besides exhaustion and stress. Something deeper.

Chemistry normally calms him down, the pure and simple science of action and reaction, it’s predictable the way the theatre never quite is. Which is why he loves the theatre, because it’s impossible to give the exact same performance twice. Every show is different. Every audience is different. The actors, the crew, they’re different every night. One night, a joke lands perfectly, the audience laughs early, oh, it’s a comedy, we’re allowed to laugh. The next night, the joke doesn’t land, the audience doesn’t laugh, and the entire evening is different, because of that one joke. 

But chemistry is replicable. A+B is always C. It’s reliable. It’s safe. Like the violin. It’s something he can control. It doesn’t depend on a thousand other factors, it’s just him. If his fingers find the perfect notes, if he measures out the correct amount, the reaction is predictable and entirely his doing.

Normally, when theatre becomes too messy, when there’s too many people and too much noise and chaos and emotion, all the things he normally thrives on, when it’s too much, he can just retreat into music, and science, and they’ve never failed to calm him down.

Except tonight. Because the moment he picked up the saline solution, the moment he put bow to strings, his mind started going through all the steps he has taken to lead him inexorably to where he is now, somehow watching John Watson break apart under a weight he doesn’t even know about, and not being able to do a thing to stop it.

It all starts like this: Six years ago he made a mistake. Lust isn’t love. But love isn’t lust, either. He thought he would have John, get it out of his system, and then get bored and move on, like it had always been before. But having John only made him want him more, paradoxically, and the more John gave of himself to Sherlock, the more of him Sherlock wanted. And what surprised him the most was that not only did he want to have John, he also wanted John to have him, to claim him and consume him and ruin him for other people. And John did, thoroughly. And Sherlock loved every second of it and never wanted to come up for air. 

And then reality came knocking, in the form of an offer he couldn’t refuse. The chance of a lifetime, but in New York. Three months rehearsals, six month run. And he knew, absolutely, that if he took that part, he would lose John. And he took that goddamned part. And he’s been trying to convince himself since that day that it’s been worth it, and he honestly doesn’t know if he ever really thought that, or if he was just terrified of how much of his heart he’d inadvertently given away and using the part as an excuse to run away. 

And now John is getting married, so he can’t even try to alter the variables so this time the outcome will be different. 

He puts down the violin. This won’t do.

He grabs his coat and slams the door behind him.

*-*

Walking is better. Re-acclimating himself to the city he loves is better than sitting in his flat, brooding. He used to do this when he couldn’t sleep as a student, sometimes, when he’d needed to get a difficult part into his head, just let his feet take him through the streets of London, the top layers of his mind thinking of the lines, the lower layers keeping track of where he was. The splitting of his attention cleared his mind of clutter, and afterwards he always had it in his head, whatever the part, however difficult.

It’s only when he rounds the corner and sees Speedy’s Sandwich Bar that he realises his feet have carried him towards Baker Street Theatre without his conscious direction. He was thinking about John, and apparently his subconscious has directed him to the place he most closely associates with him.

He’s about to pass when he realises there’s still light under the stage entrance door. Before he can talk himself out of it, he opens the door and passes through the dark green room to the stage manager’s office door.

The light is on, and Mike is sprawled on the floor, passed out drunk, in a stable lateral position, obviously positioned in a way that he won’t choke on his own vomit. The door to the courtyard is open, and John is sitting on the bottom of the two steps leading outside. His entire posture screams exhaustion, both physical and emotional.

“Hey,” Sherlock says, and John flinches.

He turns around and when he sees Sherlock, he frowns, obviously surprised and not happy about it. “God, you startled me. What are you doing here at this time of night?”

“I could ask you the same,” Sherlock points out and sits next to John on the steps.

John gives him a humourless smirk. “I asked first.”

Sherlock shrugs. “I was just walking by. Now you.”

John sighs, rubbing his hand over his forehead. “Can’t deduce it?” It comes out vaguely belligerent, and Sherlock notices how tense John is. All his defences are up, and Sherlock doesn’t understand why.

But the deduction is easy, given Mike’s current state and John’s family history. “You’re asking yourself what about you makes you a prime target for exploitation by alcoholics.”

John huffs a dry, humourless laugh. “Full marks. Well done.”

For a while, they just sit there, quietly, and Sherlock thinks that maybe he should go, maybe he’s intruding, but he can’t bring himself to leave John alone like this. 

“You could just walk away,” Sherlock points out when it’s clear that John won’t elaborate. 

John sighs. “This is my home, Sherlock. These people are my family.”

“This is your place of employment.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” John says, and there’s something in his voice, something bitter and hurting and sad. “I love it here. I love this theatre.”

“Then stay,” Sherlock says gently. “But Mike isn’t your father, John. He isn’t Harry. It’s not your job to fix him. It wasn’t even your job to fix them. You can’t help him, and you know this better than anyone else.”

John nods, resting his face in his hands. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.” He looks over at Sherlock for the first time since he sat down next to him. For a moment, he looks like he’s about to say something, but then he just nods once more. “All right. Enough self-pity. I need to get some actual sleep in my actual bed.”

Sherlock gives him a small smile, realising that that’s his cue to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

He gets up and starts walking.

“Sherlock.”

He turns back, but John isn’t looking at him, he’s still gazing into the courtyard. “Yes?”

John swallows audibly, and his voice sounds rough and uneven when he asks, “Do you really think we were a mistake?”

Sherlock closes his eyes and curses himself for an idiot. Of course John heard his entire exchange with Irene this morning in the rehearsal room. And of course it would have hurt him. Of course the mistake he was referring to was him mistakenly thinking that sleeping with John and being in love with him were two entirely different things, but for John it must have sounded like he was dismissing the entire relationship as an error. 

It occurs to him that for his own sanity, and for John’s sake, to enable them both to move on, he should say yes. Then John would get married in peace and Sherlock would not wonder anymore what John was doing, would just know that door was closed.

But in the end, he can’t bring himself to lie. “No.”

John nods again, into the darkness, at nothing in particular, but by the way some of the tension goes out of him, Sherlock knows he’s said the right thing. At least for this moment. 

“Good night, John,” Sherlock says and walks away, closing the door carefully behind him.

Then he goes home and sleeps.

*-*

Next morning, when John gets to the theatre, Sherlock is already there, and there’s a cup of takeaway coffee and two scones from Speedy’s waiting on his desk.

The coffee is perfect, of course, just the way he likes it, a splash of milk and no sugar, and the scones are still warm.

He looks over at Sherlock, who’s already lying on the couch, fingers steepled, thinking through the day.

He knows what Sherlock is saying, though, and he drinks the coffee and eats the scones and thinks, _Apology accepted._


	4. Chapter 4

John is so tired. So very tired. 

He’s used to feeling like this at the end of tech week, but it’s fucking Monday, and he’s already nearly done in. He was in at eight to check whether the stage was done, found seven things that needed to be fixed, then spent the time before the actors came in at noon helping Mary focus and program the lights. They’re programming light cues tonight and tomorrow with Lestrade and Anderson, so the basic focusing needs to be done by then. Fortunately, the play has about six light cues, so at least the programming should be quick. 

Nothing else has been quick. The wallpaper Anderson picked out was a nightmare, so they had to replace it, the sofa was missing two of its four legs when it was delivered, and actually hanging and focusing lights went on straight through the weekend, because Mike’s useless. He disappears every day before lunch, and even before that, his hands are shaking too much to be of any use whatsoever. So John has been doing two jobs, and the strain is showing. The crew has been pressuring him to talk to Mrs Hudson, but he just doesn’t have the time. And they all know what she’s going to say anyway. Mike is family. She won’t fire him, no matter how late he is or how much he fucks up. It’s her one Achilles’ heel as a theatre owner. She loves her crew, and she’s loyal to them, and most of the time, that’s a huge asset, but sometimes that loyalty is misplaced, or abused, and it takes a long time for her to see this sometimes. 

Rehearsals are going well, aside from interpersonal shit he doesn’t have time for. Sherlock has been quiet and is keeping to himself, and after that oddly intimate evening talk, they’ve gone back to strictly business, and John quite frankly can’t handle anything else right now. 

The vomiting leaves a giant mess and it’s disgusting, and they need to switch out a few props every other night or so, because the moisture of the porridge mix they use for vomit ruins them. But the run-throughs are going extremely well, and Sherlock is so much better than Jim that even Seb has made his peace with the switch. Mrs Hudson was in on Friday, and today they did a props-only run for the crew on stage, and everything went swimmingly. Lestrade even provided a much-needed laugh when he told everybody to do a “no vomit” run, which definitely goes into John’s collection of things you only hear in the theatre. 

Now they’re sitting together backstage, actors and crew. Lestrade’s done with his notes, and they’re all having beers and relaxing. They’re regaling each other with the weirdest moments in their theatre lives.

“Remember the mouse, Molly?” John says, taking a sip of his beer and shifting so Mary, who’s leaning against him on the sofa, isn’t poking her elbow into his ribs.

“Oh my god, the mouse!” Molly turns to the others. “We had this director who wanted an actual white mouse for the photoshoot for the promotional material, and so phoned our local pet store and asked them whether they had any white mice. Yes, ok, so can I rent one? And the clerk just hung up on me.”

Everybody laughs, and Molly continues, “So I had to call, I don’t know, five or six pet stores. Same story. Finally I gave in and bought one.”

“What did you do with it after the photoshoot?” Irene asks.

“Well, we couldn’t really keep it, so we argued back and forth whether to just give it to this one actor who had snakes.”

“But we were all sort of fond of her by that point,” Sally jumps in, grimacing. “So we released her into the wild in Regent’s Park.”

“Where I’m sure she was eaten as well, but at least she had a fighting chance,” John says, and the actors all chuckle.

Sally sighs. “Poor Mitzy. I still think the best part of the story is how Mike argued with our accountant whether the mouse was a prop or a performer.”

The crew all laugh and groan, because they've all had similar discussions with accounting. 

“That was the same director that gave me the less Hitler, more Stalin note,” Molly offers. “Fake moustaches.”

“Isn’t that make-up?” Adriana asks, and the entire crew groans.

“It’s make-up when it’s actually on your face,” Sally says. “When you carry it on stage in your hand, it’s a prop.”

“Same with lamps,” Mary adds. “In your hand, prop. On the wall, lights. But only if it actually works, if it doesn’t work, it’s part of the set.”

“Don’t get them started, we’ll be here all night,” John says.

“Remember that one director we had whose lighting notes consisted of yelling the word “More!” over and over?” Mary throws in.

“I once shared the stage with a sheep. The problem was that the sheep liked the limelight, so one night I couldn’t get the bloody sheep off the stage. I towed, I pushed, it just wouldn’t move, so finally our props master went and stood in the wings and lured the sheep off with some kind of sheep treat. So I’m relieved and am just launching into by big monologue, when I hear a very loud ‘Baaaaah’ from the wings.” Adriana pauses for effect and the entire room is in stitches with laughter. “I open my mouth again. ‘Baaah’. The audience is roaring with laughter by this point, obviously. So I decide to hell with it, and I get my monologue out, and every time I hear ‘Baaah,’ I just speak more loudly. The audience members didn’t hear a word I said, but they had the time of their lives.”

John wipes tears of laughter from his face. “How the fuck did they keep a sheep backstage?”

“That’s the worst part of the story. The fucking sheep had to have a dressing room to itself, and we had to share.”

Groans and laughter follow, and when everybody has calmed down somewhat, Sherlock says, “Sometimes mistakes do make things funnier. We were nearing the end of the run of this wildly farcical comedy where, at a pivotal moment in the play, my co-star and I were bound to chairs, back to back. We’re in the middle of the scene, and our gangster boss comes in and asks for the MacGuffin of the play. Suddenly, my co-star starts rocking the chair and wriggling. I’Ve got no idea what he’s doing, of course, so I’m just trying not to fall off that chair while looking like this is all perfectly normal and we’ve done this every night for six months. Suddenly, he’s free of the ropes and he runs off stage.”

“He just ran off mid-scene? Was it to be sick? I had this colleague once who ran off to throw up into the fire bucket, then he walked back on and finished the scene,” Irene interrupts.

“He wasn’t ill, he was just an idiot.” They all laugh at Sherlock’s dry tone, and then he continues the story, “So the actor playing our gangster boss looked at me, and I could see the panic in his eyes. So we improvise, he insults me, I defend myself. Then our colleague runs back on stage, wriggles himself back into his ropes, and continues the scene as if nothing happened. We later found out that he’d left the MacGuffin on the props table, and he had to get it, because the play would have stopped dead in its tracks if he hadn't. The audience found the whole thing hilarious, and thought it was part of the play.”

“They always do, don’t they? Remember when you broke that window on press night, and we got raving reviews because the critics thought you cleaning up the glass was the best gag they’d ever seen,” Molly says.

“I told you it would break,” Sherlock points out and Molly rolls her eyes.

“It was fine during tech, and it would have been fine for the entire run if you hadn’t slammed it shut.”

“John, help me out here,” Sherlock turns to John for confirmation. “You agreed with me at the time.”

John grimaces at Molly. “I did. Sorry.” He turns to Sherlock, grinning. “You did slam it, though.”

Everybody laughs, and John decides to change the subject. “I once argued with a butcher about how long a pig’s heart would last in the fridge if it was only taken out and handled for about an hour every night,” John says.

“Oh my god, the pig’s heart.” Sherlock makes a disgusted face. “By Wednesday it was always a bit dodgy.”

“You used to take them home and dissect them, and leave parts of them all over my fridge, if I remember correctly. I found pieces of these damned things for months after you left,” John interjects, and he means it to sound annoyed, but it comes out wistful, and he hates himself a little for it. 

Sherlock looks away, and John glares down at his hands, angry with himself because there’s a lump in his throat and he feels a powerful sadness, mingled with bittersweet nostalgia. 

“Well,” Lestrade says, and John shakes himself out of it, noticing how the entire room has gone quiet. “Cast, go home.”

The group gets up and starts to leave quietly, except for Sherlock, who’s still sitting there, frowning at his hands. 

John looks around at the rapidly dispersing cast and crew. “Wow, I really know how to clear a room,” he says.

Sherlock smiles a bit sadly, and John’s heart gives a twist inside his chest. “Pig hearts aren’t for the weak-stomached.”

For a moment, they just look at each other, and John can almost feel the weight of everything he’s never said to this man like a physical pressure on his shoulders. 

Then Mary calls from the auditorium, and the moment breaks like glass. “I need to go,” John says, gesturing at the stage. “Lights.”

Sherlock’s smile fades, leaving a lingering sadness on his face before he smooths his expression into a careful neutrality. “See you tomorrow.”

John nods. “Yes. Tomorrow.”

Sherlock leaves, and John walks onto the stage. Mary’s already at her lighting console, which is sitting in the sixth row on a board across the seats. She looks up from programming it for a moment, and gazes at John critically, head cocked to one side. “You’re still in love with him.”

“I am not,” John says, automatically defensive even though he knows it’s true. 

“Really? Is that why you’re talking about finding pieces of rotting meat he left in your fridge in the tone people talk about their first dates?”

“Even if it was true, and I’m not saying it is, that doesn’t do me a whole lot of good, seeing as he probably isn’t interested anymore.”

“Well, maybe, I don’t know, ask him?” Mary suggests.

“And if he says no, I’ll feel like the biggest idiot on the planet.”

Mary sighs. “You know I love you, right?”

John nods, confused. 

“Then take this the way it’s meant. You’re really bad at asking for what you want. You’ve wanted to be stage manager for two years now, and Mike’s promised you every year he’d retire, and he never has, and you never push him. You don’t go to Mrs Hudson and tell her to make you stage manager, because you assume she’ll pick Mike over you. You always assume people won’t be on your side, won’t pick you, won’t want to be with you.”

John swallows around the lump in his throat and with it the words on the tip of his tongue. What he wants to say is, _Because I know they won’t, because nobody ever has. Not my parents, not Sherlock, nobody’s ever picked me over anything._

Mary looks at him compassionately, like she knows what he’s thinking, which is very likely. She was there when his dad died, and she’s seen him at his worst. 

John rubs a hand over his face. “Just… can we get through this week?”

Mary looks at him fondly. “Sure. But don’t let this opportunity go to waste, John. How many second chances do you think you’re going to get?”

*-*

There are two problems with standing in for the actors while programming light cues. First, it’s tedious to the point of frustration to anyone not actually doing the programming. And it usually takes place when the rest of the crew is either already done for the day or hasn’t started yet. Which means additionally to being tedious, it’s also done either late at night or early in the morning.

It also gives you too much time to think. 

So while John moves from one seat to the next while Mary, Lestrade and Anderson program light cues, he thinks about whether Mary is right. If he knew Sherlock still wants him, would he go back?

He tries to imagine what that would be like. How he’d come home, and Sherlock would be there, playing the violin, or puttering around in the kitchen with some experiment or other, or pouncing on him and telling him a long-winded theory about what the brand of cigarettes they smoke says about people. Or Sherlock would take one look at him and crawl into bed with him, undress him gently, kiss him while their bodies moved together…

John feels his heart contract as he admits to himself how much he wants that, and how sick he is of going home to an empty flat that’s nothing but six years of accumulated silence and a few fleeting affairs with both men and women who were mainly remarkable in how little they were anything like Sherlock. 

John yawns and moves from an armchair to the sofa. At least this is a sitting sort of play. He remembers the time they did Midsummer Night’s Dream and he was standing in for Puck and spent an hour perched on a ledge halfway up the upstage wall. Or the summer production where they were doing lights at four am in an outdoor venue and he was sitting on an uncomfortable bench, freezing his balls off under two blankets. Or the time he fell asleep while the lighting designer and the director tried out different ways to light the bed they had on stage.

That bed was so warm and soft and comfortable…

_Soft sheets, morning sun warming his skin. Warm body behind him, fingers tracing the bumps of his spine, softly, and John smiles, pretending to sleep._

_“I know you’re awake.” Softy murmured against the shell of his ear, more breath than sound, as the body moves closer, and now they’re pressed together, back to front, toes to shoulders, and John shivers in delight, all that skin and the warm breath is tickling his ear, and he thinks, This, always this, please, every morning, always…_

“John?”

“John!”

John jerks awake. Mary’s standing next to him, fondly amused. “We’re done for today.”

John checks his watch. “It’s only 10:30, we can go on.”

Mary rolls her eyes. “John. Please. We’ve got six light cues left. We can do it tomorrow morning before the actors come in. You’re clearly done for.”

“Sorry,” he mutters, rubbing his eyes.

Mary holds out a hand to help him up. “Why are you apologising for being human, you clod? Do you think there’s a person in this crew who would blame you for needing a break?” She grips his shoulders. “We need you. We need you healthy, well-rested, and happy. Understood?”

John nods, abashed, and Mary pulls him in for a hug. “Now go find a corner to sleep in, you enormous idiot, or I’ll knock you unconscious with a moving light.”

“Please don’t, they’re so expensive,” John says mildly, and Mary laughs.

*-*

John wakes up when Mary walks into the green room where he slept - again, he needs to stop doing that - and drops her wedding binder onto the coffee table with unnecessary force. “Fucking wedding and fucking flowers and fucking dresses and fucking place settings. I don’t fucking care where my fucking Aunt Louise sits, and I doubly don’t fucking care where Janine’s posh work friends sit, the fucking gits.”

John blinks up at her, feeling overwhelmed by life and entirely unprepared for bride rage. “What time is it?” he asks.

“Half-nine, you’ve got time for a shower and breakfast. Did you listen to a word I just said?”

“The content got lost among the fuckings,” John says, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Every muscle in his body hurts. “Oh god, I need to stop sleeping here.”

“My point exactly,” Mary says and sits down on the other end of the sofa. 

John grabs the coffee and two scones from Speedy’s that are sitting on the coffee table. “Oh god, breakfast, thank you!”

Mary frowns. “That… wasn’t me.” 

John tastes the coffee. It’s perfect, and also stone cold. “Who…”

He hears a rustling and the penny drops. “Sherlock is laying claim to dressing-room space.”

Mary looks at the coffee and pointedly at the dressing room door. 

John rolls his eyes. “For God’s sake, I thought you had your own problems.”

“Oh, yes, I do, that doesn’t mean I don’t have time to tease you about yours. Especially since yours are easier to solve than mine.”

“Yes, because giving the ex who broke your heart another shot at it is easier than figuring out the logistical details of marrying the woman you love,” John says quietly, so Sherlock won’t hear.

Of course Sherlock chooses this exact moment to emerge from the dressing room. He starts a bit when he sees John and Mary. “Oh, you’re awake!”

John smiles at him, hoping he doesn’t look too falsely cheerful. “Yep. Thanks for the coffee. Again.”

Sherlock shrugs, clearly uncomfortable. “You looked like you needed it,” he says, looking pointedly at Mary, then he ducks into the room where they keep the make-up and the wigs.

Mary looks after Sherlock quizzically, then shrugs. “Anyway, we-”

She stops talking as Lestrade walks in. He looks tired and rumpled, and he just nods at them and makes a beeline for the kitchen and the coffee maker.

John nods at the stage. “Let’s get set up.”

Mary gets up, then turns and gives John a hand up. “I’ll get started. You shower.”

John drains his cold but perfect coffee and follows Mary’s advice.

*-*

The day is a typical first day on stage. A nightmare.

It takes forever to get the last light cues programmed. The actors are rehearsing in costume for the first time, and a few small things happen, as always. Adriana’s blouse is too tight around the wrist to accommodate the tube for the vomit. The tube chafes her, and they need to readjust. A hundred little things that were clear in the rehearsal room need small adjustments for the larger space, the longer walks.

The actors get nervous. It’s always the same, they’re relaxed and funny in the rehearsal room, because there’s no audience, no pressure, they know anything can go wrong and they’ll just do it again from the top. But on stage, under the glare of the headlights, suddenly they realise that in four short days, all the seats will be filled and two hundred people will be watching them, and for them every mistake will be the experience they have with this play in this moment, no take-backs. And John knows that by Thursday, Friday at the latest, the actors will want the audience to come in, to have that rush of adrenaline and that energy to feed off from, but right now they’re insecure and still trying to find their feet.

Except Sherlock. Sherlock never seems to be nervous, never seems to have doubts that he’s going to be perfect. Sherlock rarely makes mistakes. Things go wrong, of course. The odd thing is, in the rehearsal room, Sherlock can be a pest about things going wrong, actors messing up, props not fitting, wardrobe malfunctions, but during performance, Sherlock rarely minds, and John knows it’s because Sherlock is fascinated by the unpredictability of theatre, its immediacy, and John knows because it’s the reason he loves theatre himself.

The first run-through is a tedious mess, because they need to stop to add the sound and light cues and get transitions right, and John can feel the actors’ annoyance and boredom coil like a taut string. The second run-through is catastrophic, because the goddamned vomit contraption breaks and they need half an hour to clean up the stage and repair the fucking thing.

They finally wrap at around nine, and John has been in this theatre and for thirty-six hours. 

John is helping Mary with the light console, moving it up to the lighting booth now they’re done programming, and Molly’s re-setting the stage for tomorrow’s rehearsal. Mary’s complaining about something or other for her wedding, and John is quite openly not listening. His only thoughts are of food, shower, and his own fucking bed. In that order.

Mary stays up in the lighting booth to set up for tomorrow, and John leaves her to it and goes down to the green room to pick up his stuff. 

He meets Sherlock in the kitchen. He’s loading his teacup into the dishwasher, and he also puts in the glass he apparently took off stage with him.

It’s a testament to how tired he is that he feels only a little surge of warmth at being alone with Sherlock, a week of the oddly intimate atmosphere of a cast and crew working together for long hours has already acclimated him to Sherlock’s presence. He’s become familiar again, the way he moves, his voice. 

John smiles. “If this was a bigger theatre, you’d be in so much trouble right now.”

“I know. Touching a prop, on Broadway I’d be ostracised,” Sherlock says, giving John a small smile. 

John debates for a second, but curiosity wins over caution and he asks the question he’s been wanting to ask since Day 1. “How was Broadway?” By which of course he means, how have you been, tell me everything.

Sherlock shrugs. “It was… well, very American, I suppose. As in everything is bigger, and they want everything done in half the time. Also, six month runs are hell.”

“I can imagine. Did you get bored?”

“You know me, I’m always bored. I was lucky, I was in a lot of productions where we’d switch roles around, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

“And what does one do for fun on Broadway, backstage? Play cards? Watch TV?” 

Sherlock smiles humorlessly. “Cocaine.”

John’s smile fades as he realises that Sherlock is serious. “You….”

“I’m clean. Now.” John hears the finality in Sherlock’s voice and doesn’t ask any follow-up questions.

Sherlock makes a face that John knows means he isn’t entirely satisfied with the words that just came out of his mouth. “There’s a ridiculous amount of snogging going on as well, all very unprofessional,” he adds, and John smiles.

“Terribly unprofessional,” he agrees, and when their eyes meet, John feels warm all over, and he wonders whether Sherlock is thinking what he’s thinking, about how they’re alone in the theatre, and in the old days Sherlock would have already pushed him up against the kitchen counter and would have already had his pants down and his head…

John swallows hard and unconsciously licks his lips, and Sherlock’s eyes dart to his lips, almost imperceptibly. Then something in his eyes changes, fades, and Sherlock closes the dishwasher with an audible click and nods at the door. “I should go.”

John hesitates only for a split second. “How about dinner?”

Sherlock frowns. “What, now?”

John shrugs. “I’m starving.” He sees Sherlock’s hesitation and holds up a hand. “No pressure, I just thought... “ he makes a helpless gesture. “Look, we’ve…I don’t know, we haven’t really had a chance to just, you know, talk?”

Sherlock still looks sceptical, but then he reluctantly nods. “All right. Why not.”

John smiles, and wonders silently if this is the worst idea he’s ever had, but maybe this is his chance to figure out whether Sherlock is still interested, and once he knows, he can figure out what to do about it. Only he already knows what to do about it. And it’s definitely unprofessional.

*-*

“What’s the story with Mike?” Sherlock asks as soon as they’ve ordered, not necessarily because he needs to be told - obvious, really, divorce, alcoholism, rather pedestrian - but because it will establish the tone for the evening. Professional small-talk and reminiscing about old friends is all right, anything personal is not.

“Tale as old as time, I suppose. Man works too much and gets divorced. Wife moves away, takes children. Man starts drinking.” John smirks humourlessly. “Bit of a cautionary tale, really.”

That’s far too close to discussing John’s marriage, as far as Sherlock is concerned, which is the last thing he wants to do. So he asks, “How long has it been this bad?”

“It’s been pretty bad the last two shows, and this time it’s the worst it’s ever been.”

Sherlock’s phone chirps, and he looks at it briefly. Mycroft. Again. He’s been texting Sherlock for three days now about an audition for something or other, and Sherlock has been ignoring him, because Mycroft knows he’s in tech and should leave him the hell alone. 

“It’s been doing that a lot over the last few days. Anything the matter?”

Sherlock scowls at his phone. “Only Mycroft trying to get me to actually work myself to death.”

John winces. “He’s still your agent?”

Sherlock shrugs. “My parents won’t let me fire him. They’re convinced it’s Mycroft’s calling in life to get me that Tony. It would serve all of them right if I quit acting and became a chemistry teacher to posh brats.”

“Yours is the only family where leaving the stage for a respectable career would be considered an act of rebellion,” John says, fondly amused, and Sherlock feels the warmth of it down to his toes. 

Their food arrives, saving him an answer, and John sighs happily. “Oh thank god, food,” he says, then bites into his burger with relish. 

Sherlock could not possibly care less about his own food, but he eats a few chips to keep himself from watching John.

They’re in a small pub around the corner from the theatre. Sherlock’s first impulse was Angelo’s, but there are too many memories there and the atmosphere is too romantic. This is after all very much not a date. This is John Watson’s attempt at being friends. And Sherlock simultaneously loves and hates every second of it.

The pub’s lighting makes the most of John’s colouring, his blond hair is catching the low lighting in a flattering way, and he looks younger, less care-worn away from the theatre. So far, they’ve kept to surface chatter, which Sherlock usually hates, but he’s glad of it tonight, because he doesn’t want to hear about John’s relationship and his wedding and anything else that reminds him that John is unavailable. 

The thing is, Sherlock is pretty sure he could get John into bed with him tonight. John has always been bad at resisting Sherlock, and he’s giving out a lot of unconscious ‘seduce me’ signals that somebody who doesn’t know him as well as Sherlock does wouldn’t pick up on. So he knows if he plays this right, he could just take John home and ravish him, and a big part of him wants to do just that and fuck the consequences. But the longer they sit here, the more he realises he doesn’t want John like this. He wants John entirely, or not at all. He doesn’t want a frantic tumble and a shy goodbye, he wants a wild, passionate night and a slow, lazy morning, where John stays for breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, and doesn’t check his watch and mutters excuses and slinks out, and he doesn’t want the drama of being the person John cheated with, the other, the one who gets left. 

And every minute he sits here, it gets harder to resist the temptation of John’s smile, his laugh, the adorable way he chews his chips, the sauce dribbling down his chin, the way he cocks his head and asks a thoughtful question about Sherlock’s parents and what they’re up to.

Abruptly, Sherlock stands. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

He takes out twenty pounds, throws them at the table and leaves without another word.


	5. Chapter 5

Saturday. Press night.

John’s at the theatre at three, checking in with box office and catching up on emails and all the things he didn’t have time for during the last few days. 

Mary and Mike are also in, they’re replacing two headlights that fried yesterday during dress. 

Otherwise, dress went well. Adriana dropped her cake, and Irene flubbed a few lines, Seb stumbled over his shoelace, but they made the best of it. Sherlock was flawless, as usual, but he’s been off the last few days. Flat. A bit listless. Ever since that bloody dinner. 

John curses himself for the biggest idiot on the planet. He’s done this so often during the last few days that he’s lost count. He wonders how he could have misread the situation so badly as to honestly think there’s anything left to rekindle there. Obviously, Sherlock is no longer interested. Obviously, he’s moved on and now everything is awkward and stilted because Sherlock is aware that John is still in love with him. They’ve barely exchanged ten words that weren’t related to the production since that dinner, and John isn’t sure he blames Sherlock. 

He rubs at his eyes and powers down the company laptop. Then he goes through the stage door and starts setting up his stage manager corner. His book is already there, and his walkie-talkie is charging next to the monitor. He gets his water bottle, the gaffer tape, the sewing kit, the first-aid kit and the small toolbox he always keeps by his desk. Then he takes a second just to breathe. The wood-paint-dust flying into the lights stage smell always calms him down and fills him with a great sense of perspective. Everything is a moment. Moments pass. Stubbed toes, dropped props, missed opportunities. They all pass. And the lights go on, the audience leaves, and you get to do it again the next day. And the day after that. No matter what, the show goes on. Life goes on.

The backstage door opens and John goes back into the green room to see whether the fire inspector is early today. 

John freezes when he sees it’s Sherlock, who’s about to go into his dressing room. 

It’s the first time they’ve been alone together in three days, and John has no idea what to say. “You’re in early,” he finally gets out.

“I forgot my phone charger. Just here to pick it up,” Sherlock says and turns to go into the dressing room without another word.

John nods to himself, feeling awkward and uncomfortable and unhappy, and hating himself for having given Sherlock the chance to hurt him again. When will he ever fucking learn?

Sherlock comes out of the dressing room, holding his phone charger, and they look at each other in silence. 

“See you later,” Sherlock finally says, and turns to leave.

A scream rips through the air, followed by a giant crash from the auditorium. John turns and runs out the backstage entrance and to the side entrance of the auditorium, Sherlock close behind him. He rips the door open and gasps at the sight that meets him. The ladder Mary and Mike were using to exchange the headlights is lying over the seats, and Mary’s crumpled form lies on the floor, unmoving. 

“Shit,” John curses and runs toward her. He pushes back panic as he remembers his first aid training. She’s unconscious, and he can see no bleeding. He turns her to her side and makes sure her airways are clear. Dimly, he can hear Sherlock calling an ambulance.

Then Sherlock kneels down next to him. “Is anything broken?”

“I don’t know. Fucking hell, where the fuck is Mike!?” John looks around and sees Mike sitting in the first seat of the row behind the one they’re kneeling next to, sound asleep. 

“Mike!” John yells, going over and shaking him awake. “What the fuck, you were supposed to help her.”

Mike’s obviously too drunk to understand John’s words, but as he slowly wakes up, he sees Mary’s prone form on the ground behind John, and he turns an alarming shade of green. “Oh god,” he mutters and stumbles out into the courtyard to be violently ill.

“Fantastic,” John mutters, and kneels down back at Mary’s side. “Mary,” he calls out, gently. “Can you hear me?”

She stirs slightly, wincing in pain as she does.

The front doors open and the paramedics come in, led by Sherlock, who must have gone out to meet them. At least somebody is doing something useful, John thinks.

The paramedics are reassuringly brisk and professional. They’ve got Mary on a stretcher and are wheeling her out in no time, and John stumbles after them in a trance. There’s a short discussion where it turns out he can’t ride in the ambulance with her, but he can follow in a cab.

Sherlock is lingering behind him the entire time. When the ambulance drives off, it’s Sherlock who flags down a cab and packs him into it. John looks at him, and he knows his shock is written on his face. Sherlock hesitates briefly, then he gets into the cab with John. “St. Bart’s hospital,” he says to the cabbie, then proceeds to gaze out of the window while John tries to pull himself together. He gets out his phone and calls Janine. Voicemail.

“Mary was hurt. St. Bart’s, come immediately,” he says, and hangs up.

“Fucking hell,” he whispers and rests his forehead against the cool glass of the cab window.

The cab pulls up at the A+E entrance of St. Bart’s, and Sherlock and John get out of the car. John starts to go in, but turns around when he realises Sherlock’s not following.

He turns around, and Sherlock makes an aborted gesture at the street. “I should…”

John swallows, and hates himself for how much he wants Sherlock to not go. “Could you…” he begins, but can’t finish the sentence around the lump in his throat.

He can see something within Sherlock give way, and Sherlock nods. “Of course.”

Together, they enter the waiting room.

*-*

“Hospital tea is terrible. Why is it that hospital tea is this terrible? Aren’t hospitals supposed to make people better? How is anybody supposed to get better if the tea is this-” John cuts himself off mid-ramble and puts down the cup Sherlock put in his hands a few minutes ago. 

“You want coffee instead?” Sherlock asks quietly. He’s sitting next to John, looking deeply uncomfortable. But he’s here. And John appreciates it enormously.

“No. Sorry, I didn’t mean to…you know.”

“It’s all right.”

They’re quiet for a few minutes, waiting, waiting, waiting. John fucking hates waiting. “This is my fault, you know,” he says.

“How is it your fault?”

“I should have helped her with the lights, not left it to fucking Mike.”

“Isn’t it Mike’s job to do this?” 

“That’s not the point. I knew he wasn’t capable of doing it, and I shouldn’t have let him,” John points out. 

“You’re not stage manager, he is. You’re his deputy. He’s the one who’s responsible.”

John rubs a hand over his face in frustration. “I’m responsible. These people are my crew, they look to me. I’m stage manager. I’ve been doing his job for months now.”

“You should say that to Mrs Hudson,” Sherlock points out mildly. “You can’t go on doing two jobs and getting paid for one forever.”

“She’s known Mike for twenty years, she won’t fire him.”

“She should. He can’t do his job. This isn’t her Friday lunch club, it’s irrelevant whether she likes him or not. This is business.”

“Well, not everybody values business over people, Sherlock, not everybody’s like you,” John snaps.

Sherlock draws back a bit, and for a moment, an icy silence falls. John bites his lips. “I’m sorry,” he finally offers. “I didn’t mean-”

“Didn’t you?” Sherlock interrupts and John winces, because yes, he did. 

Sherlock looks at his hands. “I was 25 years old. I’d just been offered the role of a lifetime. In New York, on Broadway. More money than I’d ever earned in my life. A role that would get me seen, would open countless doors. Everything I’d worked for since I was a child, in my reach. I could get out of my contract, no problem. Now tell me, John,” he says, turning to John and looking at him, cooly appraising and quietly angry. “Should I have turned it down? For a relationship that had lasted barely six months at that point, that I wasn’t sure would endure?”

John swallows hard around the lump in his throat, relieved that they’re finally, finally having this conversation, and he has a chance to say what’s been weighing on him for six years. “No. No, you were right to take that role. But if you’d taken five minutes, if you’d sat me down and said, look, I need to do this, this is the chance of a lifetime, I would have bloody understood, and I might not have gone six years questioning whether you ever really cared about me at all.”

Sherlock looks slightly shell-shocked, and John continues, “You didn’t even tell me you’d gotten the role. I learned it from Mrs Hudson when I came in to work the next day and you were gone. And it sort of made me question-” he makes an all-encompassing gesture with his hands “- just, everything, I guess. Our entire relationship. I thought if you didn’t find it worth your while to tell me you were leaving the country, you must’ve thought we’d just had casual fun, and I just read too much into it.”

Sherlock swallows audibly. “You didn’t. Read too much into it,” he says, looking down at his hands. 

John presses his lips together, trying to keep the emotion in. It shouldn’t mean this much after six years, but John feels like a weight has been lifted from his heart. “You never said.”

“You never asked,” Sherlock points out, gently, quietly, looking up at John, and there’s so much emotion in his eyes it takes John’s breath away. It reminds him painfully of how Sherlock used to look at him back in the day, and the moment stretches, and they just sit there, gazing at each other, neither wanting to look away. John’s heartbeat picks up noticeably, and he thinks of just leaning over and kissing Sherlock…

“You the chaps who came in with Mary Morstan?” A bored-looking nurse asks.

John gets up immediately, his anxiety returning full force. “Yes. How is she?”

The nurse checks the chart. “You John Watson? She said to tell you,” he reads from a piece of paper, “concussion, sprained ankle, it’s her own damned fault for getting up that ladder with Mike in the condition he was in, and you still need to fix the downstage left moving light?”

John laughs a little hysterically, relief and adrenaline making him light-headed. “Thank you.”

He turns to Sherlock, grinning from ear to ear. “Thank god.” 

Sherlock is looking at him oddly, but John doesn’t have time to parse this right now. “Listen, I need to get to the theatre and fix that bloody light. I’ll call Janine, and then we can go.”

“Who’s Janine?” Sherlock asks, confused.

“Mary’s fiance,” John says, taking out his phone. It’s 4:30, three hours to curtain up. He calls Janine again. 

She picks up first ring. “John. I’m on my fucking way. What the hell happened?”

“Concussion, sprained ankle. She fell off the ladder. Listen, I can’t hang around.”

“Of course. Show must go on and all that. I’ll be there in five minutes anyway.”

“Good. I’ll call you later to catch up, all right?”

She agrees, and he rings off with a curt goodbye.

Then he turns to Sherlock, who looks…. odd. Who doesn’t seem to have moved in the last few seconds. Who isn’t even blinking.

“Um… Sherlock?”

Sherlock blinks, but doesn’t move, or say anything. 

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock turns his head and blinks at John several times.

“Sherlock, this is getting scary,” John says, grabbing Sherlock’s arm.

“Mary’s fiance,” Sherlock says, and his voice sounds odd, rough and unstable.

“Yes. Janine. What about her?”

“You’re Mary’s fiance,” Sherlock says, still sounding as if he’s got laryngitis.

“No, I’m…. oh,” John’s voice trails off as he remembers the odd way Sherlock looked at them when he walked in on the wedding planning, and how from Sherlock’s point of view it might have looked like they were planning their wedding. And suddenly it occurs to him that Sherlock has been thinking he’s engaged and… “Oh.”

“So… you’re,” Sherlock gets out, “single.”

John’s heart starts pounding wildly at the implication, and the look in Sherlock’s eyes. “Yes,” he says, his voice sounding as strangled as Sherlock’s. _Say what you want,_ he thinks. _Now or fucking never._ “But I don’t want to be. So if you’re still-”

He doesn’t get any further, because Sherlock is grabbing a fistful of his t-shirt and pulling him in and kissing him like a starving man. John winds his hands into Sherlock’s unruly hair and kisses him back, hungry, greedy, his heart beating out of his chest, full to bursting with joy and relief. 

“Ahem.” The nurse from before clears his throat loudly. “Er, I mean, I don’t mind the show, but this is a hospital, gents, so maybe take it outside?”

Sheepishly, John draws back, but not far, because Sherlock’s hand is still fisted into his t-shirt in a white-knuckled grip, and Sherlock’s still looking at him with an intensity that could melt steel, and it’s incredibly flattering, and incredibly hot. John swallows, and he forgets what he wanted to say, lost in the promise implicit in Sherlock’s gaze, until the nurse clears his throat again.

“Gents? I don’t want to have to call security.”

Reluctantly, Sherlock lets John go, and John nods at the exit. They walk out side by side, and when they reach the sidewalk, John says, “Hey, remember when we got kicked out of a hospital A+E for snogging?”

Sherlock stops, turns to him, and then they’re both laughing, half because it’s hilarious, and half because John’s chest contains too much joy to keep it in, so it releases into gales of slightly hysterical laughter. 

When they finally calm down, they’re half-leaning against each other, and John can feel Sherlock’s voice more than hear it when he says, “What now?”

John draws back and fists his hands in the lapels of Sherlock’s suit jacket. “Now,” he says, “we have a play to put on. After,” he moves closer until he’s practically speaking against Sherlock’s lips, but not touching, just breath ghosting over his lips, “we’ll see.”

Sherlock swallows hard, and John can see his pupils dilating. “All right,” he says, and John’s incredibly smug about the tremor in his voice. 

Sherlock draws back and pulls himself together. “Let’s go, then, and get this over with.”

*-*

Sherlock has never in his life hated press night more than he does right now. 

They go back to the theatre, and Sherlock spends the entire cab ride trying not to a) maul John in the back seat of the cab or b) drag John off to his flat and forget about press night altogether.

As soon as they get to the theatre, it’s almost like nothing whatsoever happened, because John gets pulled into an emergency meeting right away, and Sherlock gets cornered by Kitty, the theatre’s PR and marketing department, who’s lined up a few interviews for Sherlock. He’s by far the biggest star who’s graced Baker Street Theatre in years, and there’s lots of press in who are there almost exclusively to see Sherlock. It’s good for the theatre, and they want to make the most of it, but Sherlock has never cared about anything less. 

He endures three interviews, then excuses himself because he needs to get ready for the performance. Feeling oddly unsure whether or not he imagined the events of this afternoon, he makes his way backstage. He literally bumps into John, who’s on his way to the foyer. He doesn’t stop, but says, “Can’t talk, fire inspector.” But he gives Sherlock a brilliant smile, and Sherlock feels better immediately. 

He looks at his watch. 45 minutes to go. He gets into costume and fixes his hair, which looks like somebody kneaded his hands through it while kissing Sherlock as if his life depended on it, and Sherlock smiles. 

John calls the half hour, and a hush settles over the backstage area. Seb’s already done and in costume, and sitting in the green room having a cup of tea. 

Irene’s doing vocal exercises, and Adriana’s doing a few yoga stretches in the kitchen.

Molly’s done with the pre-set and is leafing through a bridal magazine that Mary must have left there. She’s exuding an air of nonchalant calm that’s at sharp odds with the actors, who are all but vibrating with tension. “How’s Mary?” Sherlock asks, sitting down at the table and taking a sip of water.

“They’re keeping her overnight, but Janine said she can probably go home tomorrow. She was lucky.”

“Who’s doing lights?” Sherlock asks, and it’s odd that he’s only thought about it now.

“Sally. She’s had to do it before, when Mary had pneumonia last year. It’ll be fine,” Molly says, reassuring him automatically.

Sherlock just nods in acknowledgement, not having doubted her ability. 

Molly puts down her magazine and looks at him severely. “Just so you know,” she says, her tone brittle and cool. “If you break his heart again, we’ll kill you.”

Sherlock doesn’t answer, but gives her a curt nod to show he’s understood, that he’s taking this seriously. 

When John calls the fifteen, Sherlock can’t take it anymore. He passes quietly through the stage door and goes to stand in the wings, listening to the house come in. John’s at his stage manager’s desk and checking with Sally over the intercom that everything’s set. 

It’s dark in the wings, especially with the curtain still down, and warm, and the air smells of sawdust. 

Sherlock just stands there and breathes, listening to the low murmur of voices as the audience finds their seats. 

He feels a nudge, and John is looking at him, smiling softly. “Hey.”

Sherlock smiles back automatically, feeling the rush of adrenaline flood his senses with the hyper awareness that usually comes when he’s on stage. John leans closer to him. “You remember the first day of rehearsal, when I said I’d moved on?”

Sherlock nods, unsure where this is going.

John grins. “I lied,” he whispers.

Sherlock smiles, relieved and not caring that it shows. “Good to know.”

John leans in and presses a soft kiss to Sherlock’s cheek. “Break a leg.”

Sherlock swallows, dimly aware that John is calling beginners, and they’re all going on stage to take their places. The house lights dim, the curtain lifts, and they’re on.

*-*

Press nights are tedious. After parties are hell. Especially when you’re being shepherded from VIP guest to journalist to benefactor by an over enthusiastic press lady.

Sherlock hates after parties at the best of times, but now he’s almost painfully aware of John, who’s leaning against the bar with Sally and Molly, and who’s shed the black-on-black backstage uniform and is wearing well-fitting jeans and a button-down with the sleeves rolled up, and is looking just about good enough to eat.

Sherlock feels John’s eyes on him like a physical weight, and every time he looks over, John gives him a smile, once going so far to wink at him.

“You and Ms Adler had quite the chemistry on stage,” the latest reporter asks Sherlock. “Any backstage romancing going on?”

Sherlock gives the reporter a withering look. “I’m gay, and quite open about it. Do your research.”

Kitty laughs heartily as if Sherlock said something hilarious, and steers him away. “Okay, I get the message, you’re done.”

Sherlock smirks at her. “One of the very few intelligent things you said this evening.”

He’s about to go over to John and drag him out when he gets cornered by Mycroft and his parents. “Wonderful performance, darling,” his mother gushes, kissing his cheek.

His father nods his agreement. “Good work, son. Admittedly we’re not sure why you took this job, but it will give your reputation within the theatre community a boost, saving a production like this.”

Mycroft is following Sherlock’s gaze towards John and smiles at Sherlock knowingly. “And I suppose that was uppermost on your mind when you took the part.”

Sherlock doesn’t even try to pretend he isn’t distracted, and doesn’t even bother answering Mycroft.

“Sherlock,” his mother says, taking his arm. “We’re having drinks with an old friend of ours, he’s a very influential film producer, and he was watching tonight. He was very impressed.”

Sherlock untangles his arm from his mother’s. “First of all, I hate film. And secondly, and more importantly, I’ve got a previous engagement, and I’ve already kept him waiting for six years. Have a good night.”

He puts his glass down on the nearest available surface, and stalks directly over to John, who’s watching him with open appreciation. He walks until he’s well within John’s personal space, then leans down and murmurs against John’s ear, “Want to get out of here?”

He’s so close he can feel the shiver run through John’s body. “Oh god, yes.”

*-*

The night is cool and perfect after the heat of the stage and the crowded bar they had the afterparty in. 

They’re not ten steps away from the bar, which is also on Baker Street, when Sherlock’s phone starts to vibrate in his coat pocket. He takes it out and checks. Mycroft. Of course. He turns it off without hesitation, conscious that John is watching his every move.

John looks at him questioningly. “Ready?” 

Sherlock smiles. “Absolutely.”

Sherlock doesn’t live very far away, so they decide to walk. London is bustling, even at this time of night, and they take their time. They walk past the busy Baker Street tube station and along sidewalks teeming with tourists and locals.

“God, I’ve missed this place,” Sherlock says. “I hate New York. I’ve wanted to come back to London pretty much since the second I left.”

“Why didn’t you?” John asks, walking a bit closer to Sherlock.

“I got better offers in New York. More interesting parts. I was seen more. Got a higher profile. It didn’t matter that I didn’t like it, it was the right thing to do for my career, so I did it.”

“And the cocaine?” 

Sherlock shrugs. “I was bored and lonely. Not a good combination.”

John moves even closer, and ever so carefully entwines their fingers. Sherlock’s heartbeat picks up, and his breath catches. “I’m glad you’re back,” John says, carefully not looking at Sherlock. “I’ve missed you.”

Sherlock squeezes John’s hand and is rewarded with a shy smile. “I’ve missed you too.”

“I talked to Mrs Hudson, by the way.”

“And?”

John shrugs, a bit embarrassed. “I told her I’d quit if she didn’t do something about Mike. She put Mike on leave and made me stage manager. I’m to hire a new DSM for next season, whoever I like.”

Sherlock squeezes John’s hand. “Good for you.”

John smiles at Sherlock. “After this afternoon, I thought I’d give this thing a try where I actually say what I want.” 

Sherlock stops in front of his building, and John turns to face him.

“This is me,” Sherlock says, feeling slightly nervous. “You want to come up?”

John grins. “That’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard.”

*-*

Sherlock’s hands are shaking when he opens the door to his flat. John would find this incredibly flattering if he had any room for feeling anything other than nervous anticipation. He wants to get this right, so much, and he knows Sherlock feels the same.

Finally, the door swings open, and John has two seconds to look around the flat. Victorian wallpaper, messy, leather sofa, fireplace, chemical equipment in the kitchen.

Then Sherlock presses him against the door and covers John’s entire body with his. He leans in, breath ghosting over John’s lips, but not kissing him. He entwines their fingers and leans his entire body against John, so they’re pressed together from thigh to chest. Sherlock draws back a bit, and looks at him, searching and hesitant. “Tell me what you want,” he whispers against John’s lips. 

John squirms against Sherlock, freeing his hands and winding them in Sherlock’s unruly hair. “I want you to kiss me. And then I want you to take me to bed.”

Sherlock’s eyes darken, and his voice drops to a husky growl. “As you wish.”

And then he leans in to kiss John. It’s intense and consuming and John has never, ever been kissed like this by anyone else, like the world could end and it wouldn’t matter as long as the kiss continued. John gets his hands under Sherlock’s shirt, running them along his back, and Sherlock bites John’s lips. slides a thigh between his legs, and the kiss tips from intense to dirty, hot, single-minded and only going one place.

Sherlock hooks his fingers into John’s belt loops and walks them backwards, navigating them to the bedroom without really breaking the kiss, and John is very on board with this plan, because his knees are made of jelly and he wants to get Sherlock naked, now.

Sherlock’s bedroom is oddly bare, but John doesn’t care, he starts unbuttoning Sherlock’s shirt while trying not to break the kiss, and Sherlock does the same to him. Their hands tangle, and they get in each other's way, and it would be faster to just do it themselves, but it doesn’t matter, and Sherlock’s hands on John’s belt buckle are the hottest thing ever. 

Finally, clothes are flying left and right and John tackles Sherlock to the bed, grabbing his hands and pinning them to the mattress next to Sherlock’s head. Sherlock’s looking at him like he’s the most brilliant human being in existence, and John’s heart is so full he can’t help himself. “I love you, you know,” he says softly, looking down at Sherlock, half-naked and wide-eyed and happy.

Sherlock smiles at him softly. “Obviously, I love you too.”

John laughs and leans back down to kiss Sherlock, and Sherlock squirms underneath him, his shirt only half off, pants down to his ankles. He can feel Sherlock’s erection nudging his arse, and he grins into Sherlock’s mouth, rocking against it. Sherlock gasps, and John pulls back. Sherlock’s eyes are dark and wanting, and he moves his hips suggestively against John’s. John feels desire bubble under his skin, making him feel like he can barely contain it, like he’ll burst with it, and nobody else has ever made him feel like this, like his skin is too tight to contain all of this emotion.

“I like the way you’re thinking,” he mutters against Sherlock’s lips, and rocks against Sherlock’s erection again. 

Sherlock shudders, eyes at half-mast. “Left drawer, and god please hurry, I want…”

“I know,” John whispers, kissing Sherlock lightly. “I know. Me too.”

And god, that’s true. He wants, wants to feel Sherlock inside of him, wants to have him underneath him and completely gone with pleasure, wants to claim him and own him and never let him up for air.

He gets out the lube and condoms and makes short work of getting rid of the rest of their clothing and preparing himself and Sherlock, all the while trying not to look at Sherlock, who’s staring at him with naked hunger. Finally he can’t wait anymore. He straddles Sherlock, who’s immediately running his hands up and down John’s thighs, his chest, his face, and John holds Sherlock’s erection steady and sinks down, slowly, bracing himself against Sherlock’s chest.

He grabs Sherlock’s hands and leans down, kissing him and pressing his hands into the mattress again. “You’re mine,” he whispers fiercely against Sherlock’s lips. “Mine.”

“Yes,” Sherlock mutters, gripping John’s hands like his life depends on it. He thrusts up into John, and John feels it down to his toes, feels his entire body sing and respond. He’s painfully, achingly aroused and any coherence he had left flees when Sherlock thrusts up again. They move together, and it’s sweaty and uncoordinated and messy and fucking perfect. 

“Touch yourself,” Sherlock pants, running greedy hands over John’s skin. “Let me see you. Let me feel you.”

John grips his aching hard cock, watching Sherlock watch him with hungry eyes, and it only takes a few short strokes and he’s coming, and Sherlock thrusts up a few times and then still and shakes apart beneath John. 

John collapses on Sherlock’s chest, and they stay like this for a long moment. Sherlock’s hands trace patterns over John’s sweat-slicked back, and John presses little open-mouthed kisses against Sherlock’s chest.

“Worth the wait,” John mutters, and the feel of Sherlock’s laughter against his body is almost better than the sex. 

But only almost.

*-*

It’s just getting light, and John wakes up to empty sheets and violin music. He feels achingly nostalgic for a moment, and then remembers where he is, and the nostalgia melts into a glowing, immediate happiness. The room reeks of sex, and John feels utterly disgusting, but he stretches happily, body thrumming with satisfaction. 

They spent half the night relearning each others’ bodies, what feels good and what is too much, what tickles, what arouses, and it was even better than John remembers, because there was a sense of playfulness, of fun, that Sherlock didn’t have six years ago, he was all laser-focused intensity then, and he’s more mellow now. Still high-strung and intense and focused, but more self-assured, and somehow more sure of John, as well.

John gets up and uses the bathroom, then pads into the living room, after wrapping himself in a sheet from the bed.

Sherlock’s by the window, playing the violin, wearing a silk dressing gown and nothing else. He’s playing something achingly beautiful and sweet, and John smiles, because he spent many early mornings like this, listening to Sherlock play, and he realises now that Sherlock was trying to say something through the music he wasn’t ready to say in words. You make me happy, the music says. I’m letting you see me like this, naked and vulnerable and baring my heart to you, are you listening? 

And he was listening back then, but he was too scared to believe what he was hearing. And he’s listening now, and he hears the same thing.

Sherlock finishes the piece, and the sudden silence of the room is still reverberating with the last notes. 

“I was going to say no,” Sherlock says, still turned to the window, letting his violin sink away from his chest. “Six years ago. I got the offer, and I was going to turn it down, because I wanted to stay in London. I wanted to stay with you.”

John doesn’t know what to say, so he stays silent and hopes Sherlock will continue talking.

“I was supposed to meet you, remember? You had something to do at the theatre, and I went home to get something or other. Mycroft was waiting at my flat, and he…”

Sherlock pauses and puts down the violin, carefully. “He said I would regret it. Sooner or later. I would regret the missed opportunity, and I would resent you for it. It would poison us, he said. The knowledge that I made myself less by staying with you.”

John walks over to Sherlock and wraps his arms around him from behind, wrapping them both in the sheet. Sherlock’s skin is cold under the thin robe, and John wonders how long he’s been up and whether he slept at all.

“Maybe he was right,” he whispers against Sherlock’s back, pressing a kiss to a sharp shoulder blade. 

Sherlock turns around in John’s arms and presses them close together. “Never say that to him,” he mutters as he leans down for a kiss.

John huffs a laugh into the kiss, then murmurs, “Come back to bed.”

Sherlock smiles at him, softly. “Well, all right.”

They crawl back into bed, and Sherlock rolls on top of John, looking at him intently. “Stay for breakfast,” he says against John’s lips.

“I’ll stay for as long as you’ll have me,” John answers, wrapping a leg around Sherlock’s.

“Stay forever, then,” Sherlock says, drawing back to look at John.

John twines his fingers in Sherlock’s hair. “All right,” he says, smiling, wide and happy. “I will.”


	6. Epilogue

The email comes in on a rainy Thursday in late March. Sherlock has been home for a few hours, and he’s tired. Rehearsals were exhausting. He’s playing Henry V, and they’ve been doing fight choreography for a solid week now. 

He’s lying on the couch in the dark, fingers steepled under his chin, eyes closed to visualise the choreography better, when John comes in. 

“Sherlock?”

“In here,” Sherlock says, and lifts his feet so John can sit down on the couch. John lets himself fall heavily into the couch cushions. He’s been in tech all week, but he’s home earlier than yesterday, so apparently it’s going well. 

“How’s Carol working out?” Sherlock asks, even though he already knows, but he’s discovered that John likes telling him things, and doesn’t like it when Sherlock deduces his entire day with one casual glance and then denies John the chance to complain.

“She’s very good, but she’s got a lot to learn, obviously. But she’s the most promising DSM I’ve had so far. She managed to prevent Mary from killing our director today, her pregnancy rage is worse than her bride rage was.”

John sort of tips over and wriggles a little so he’s snuggled against Sherlock with his head resting on Sherlock’s chest.

“What’s this, then?” John asks, gesturing at Sherlock’s open laptop screen.

Sherlock closes his eyes and enjoys John’s warmth against him. “Nothing. Just Gregson being a pest and sending me job offers I won’t take.”

“That’s sort of his job, he is your agent after all,” John says, leaning over to read the email. His entire body goes still, and Sherlock tenses up for the inevitable explosion.

“Wow,” John finally says. “This is amazing! You have to do this!”

Surprised, Sherlock looks up at John, who’s perched on one elbow, looking at the screen. “But it’s at least six months. In Sydney.”

John gestures at the screen. “It’s fucking Baz Luhrmann, Sherlock, and don’t pretend for a second that you’re the one actor on the planet who doesn’t want to do Mack the Knife.”

“But it’s in Sydney.”

John sighs and looks at him searchingly. “Look,” he says, gently, “if you genuinely don’t want to do it because it doesn’t interest you artistically, I won’t mention it again. But don’t turn down opportunities like this because of me. That’s not a strategy for long-term happiness.”

Sherlock pulls John down until he’s nestled against him again. He runs his fingers under John’s t-shirt so he can trace the bumps of his spine. “But it’s Sydney. It’s so far away. And I’ll be gone eight months at least.”

“First of all,” John mutters into Sherlock’s shirt, snaking an arm around him. “There’s such a thing as the Internet, and there’s such a thing as aeroplanes. With a reliable DSM around I can actually take time off now, so I can come visit you, and you can come visit me. Secondly,” John looks up and grins, “I’ve waited around for you for six years. What’s eight months to that?”

Sherlock looks up at the ceiling and considers. Eight months will be tough, and he’ll miss John. On the other hand, he has always wanted to play Mack the Knife, he’s got some interesting ideas what to do with the character…

“You make some good points,” Sherlock concedes.

“I’ve got two more,” John says and rolls on top of Sherlock to kiss him. “First, I love you. Second, you’ll be absolutely bloody fantastic.”

“Well, obviously,” Sherlock says, rolling his eyes, and John laughs.

“Would it make you feel better if we get married before you leave?”

Sherlock draws back to look at John, who gazes back at him, deceptively calm, but Sherlock can feel the tension in his body. He snorts. “Are you actually worried that I’ll say no?”

The tension melts from John’s body and he sags back against Sherlock with a relieved sigh. “Not much,” he mutters into Sherlock’s neck and starts biting at it. “So are you actually going to say yes, or are you going to leave me hanging here?”

Sherlock pulls John in and kisses him, hard, his heart contracting painfully in his chest with happiness, because he never thought he’d have this, and now he knows he’ll never be without it. 

“Yes,” he whispers against John’s lips. “Yes.”


End file.
